There has been studies done that show how there are spikes in child births in certain years in asian countries specifically chinese speaking ones. Studies have shown that there is a significant increase in childbirths in the year of the dragon (chinese calendar) and the least in the year of tiger. Since 2000 was a dragon year I wanted to see the asian-american child birth trend. Sure enough cdc data shows a significant bump from a normal 3-5% increase to 11% in 2000.
So my 2c prognosis is as follows - In 2018 there will be above- average competition for asian-american kids trying to get into STEM majors at tippy-top colleges (read Ivies+near ivies) compared to prior years! If you are an asian american parent or student trying for Ivies/Near Ivies or any parent/student shooting for UC system beware and spread your bet(s)…
This means that the “extra” dragon year kids will be split across two school grades, which will be the two grades applying to college for fall 2018 and fall 2019.
Of course, whether that by itself is enough to cause an increase in the total number of kids in those age cohorts depends on other things as well.
Obviously, if there is a pattern in increased or decreased births by year, someone of any ethnicity may want to consider that having a kid in a “smaller” year could result in slightly less competition for any resource which same age cohorts have to compete for (e.g. space in public or private K-12 schools, admission to colleges, etc.), and slightly more competition for a kid born in a “larger” year.
Quite a few of those births in 2000 were tourist babies (my wife met many of them when she delivered our D in CA). Their mothers came to the US to give birth and then brought their kids back to their Chinese communities in HK, Taiwan, China, Philippine, etc. with a US passport as a political hedge. Many of those kids are actually going to attend their local universities.
I think the more relevant stat is the number of asian americans graduating from HS over time. My conjecture is that the numbers for fall 2018, fall 2019, and maybe fall 2020 will not be too far from one another, which are a notch higher than fall 2017. Then the big picture carries on, this number is going to continue to increase rather fast into the foreseeable future; Asian American has been and will continue to be the fastest growing demographic. The “competition” will just be more severe no matter what.
@HRSMom be warned I am no sociologist/population studies expert or a statistician, so please take my conclusions with a grain of salt. But still it is interesting that there is a pattern at all (see below)
here is the birth rate data for relevant years (surrounding dragon years). FYI, Dragon years are 1988, 2000, 2012.
Year . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . All . . . White . . . Black . . . Am.Ind. . . Asian
Funny memory of my “Dragon year bump”–Back in 1988, I was teaching ESL to an older female visiting professor from China. I was expecting my first child and I told her that I’d found out by ultrasound that the baby was a boy, This very serious, quiet woman was extremely excited for me–practically squealing with delight. “Dragon Son! Very Lucky!!” she said. H and I still quote her in reference to our oldest son.
I had to chuckle at that last post. I first learned about the Indian festival of Diwali after my premature son was born. H was/is an atheist from India and told me about it after son was born- good news for those who were religious/superstitious on his side I guess. The day before is apparently a bad luck day. The extra 15 minutes of labor (born 12:14 am) were worth it! He also was a Sunday’s child instead of Saturday’s with whatever that old saying’s words went. Diwali’s date varies from year to year as it is like Easter and based on a lunar calendar. Son’s birthday and Diwali may never coincide again. Since was born half a world away I sometimes wondered if it could count if it was already the holiday there instead of where he was born. Likewise with Indian astrology and the horoscope his US living aunt from India commissioned (and translated) for him. Cultures sure are interesting.
@stwide19 I’m not Asian, but since you have those stats handy, what are 2002 and 2003? We were planning to get pregnant when 9/11 happened, but then didn’t get around to it until a year later. So, we have a 2003 kid instead of 2002 because of post 9/11 angst.
