Study: Second children more likely to end up in prison

Second children — especially boys — may be more likely than their siblings to become criminals, according to a new study by MIT.

Boys who are born second are 40 percent more likely to end up in prison, according to researchers who studied data from the U.S. and Denmark.

The authors didn’t blame health problems or inferior schools. They blamed older siblings.

“The firstborn has role models, who are adults,” coauthor Joseph Doyle of MIT told NPR. “Second, later-born children have role models who are slightly irrational two-year-olds, you know, their older siblings.”

Denmark is well-known for open data, but the U.S. is another matter. But the researchers were able to track children in Florida who were born after 1992 all through way through high school.

What the researchers learned is that second children are 36 percent more likely to be involved in violent crimes and 29 percent more likely to be suspended from school.

Studies show that mothers tend to return to work before the second children are four years old, which may explain why the younger children act out more. But the researchers say that possibility requires more study.

This story was originally published July 18, 2017 at 6:42 PM with the headline "Study: Second children more likely to end up in prison."