Is relative age associated with sport dropout?: Evidence from Japanese novelists

The present study investigated the existence of the relative age effect, a biased distribution of birth dates, in Japanese novelists. The relative age effect is considered to be a factor for success in sporting activities, with relatively older players in the same age group being more likely to achieve sporting success than younger players. We hypothesized that relatively younger people were more likely to focus on other things besides sporting success, such as their work, study, obtaining licentiates, and hobbies, than relatively older people. A statistically biased distribution was observed in birth dates among novelists born in the 1940s and onward, and the percentage of relatively younger people that were winners of the Akutagawa Prize or Naoki Prize, prestigious Japanese literary awards, was significantly higher than relatively older people. These results suggest that relatively younger people shifted their interest from succeeding in sport to something else, and relative age effects lasted in both childhood and adults.