ArticlePloS one2020
Relative age effects in Elite Chinese soccer players: Implications of the 'one-child' policy.
Article in PloS one, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed.
- Relative age effects and implications for sport performance in elite Chinese junior male basketball players.BMC pediatrics · 2025Article
- The Royal Netherlands Football Association (KNVB) relative age solutions project-part one: a call to action.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2025Article
- Born to win? Investigating the relative age effects in the big five European women's football leagues.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2025Article
- Relative age effect at Concacaf championships: Influence of sex, age, nationality, playing position, and playing status.PloS one · 2025Article
- Relative age effect across the talent identification process of youth female soccer players in the United States: Influence of birth year, position, biological maturation, and skill level.Biology of sport · 2024Article
- Article
- The Relative Age Effect in the Two Professional Men's Football Leagues in Spain.Journal of sports science & medicine · 2023Article
- Low prevalence of relative age effects in Luxembourg's male and female youth football.PloS one · 2022Article
- The New Generation of Professional Soccer Talent Is Born under the Bias of the RAE: Relative Age Effect in International Male Youth Soccer Championships.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The relative age effect (RAE) refers to the asymmetrical distribution of birthdates in a cohort found in many achievement domains, particularly in sports with many participants like soccer. Given the uniqueness of the one-child policy in China, this study examined the existence of the RAE in elite Chinese male and female soccer players generally and relative to their playing position on the field. Results showed a clear and obvious RAE for all age groups (U20 male, U18 male, adult female and U18 female) with the observed birthdate distributions for each age group significantly different from expected distributions (p<0.05). Additionally, we noticed a differential RAE according to the players' position on the field as reflected in different effect sizes. In male players, the RAE was significantly greater in Defenders (DF) and Goalkeepers (GK) compared to Midfielders (MF) and Forwards (FW) (VDF = 0.266>VGK = 0.215>VMF = 0.178>VFW = 0.175). In female players, GKs had a larger RAE (VGK = 0.184>0.17, VDF = 0.143, VMF = 0.127, VFW = 0.116). To reduce the negative consequences associated with RAEs throughout player development systems, potential solutions are discussed.
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