Relative Age Effect in Female Sport: A Diachronic Examination of Soccer Players

Nicolas Delorme (1) , Julie Boiché (2) , Michel Raspaud (1)

1 SENS - Sport et Environnement Social
2 CURAPS - Centre Universitaire de Recherche en Activités Physiques et Sportives

The Relative Age Effect (RAE) is a biased distribution of elite athletes' birthdates, with an over-representation of those born at the beginning of the competitive year and an under-representation of those born at the end. Despite an abundant literature, the impact of sex on this phenomenon remains neglected by most researchers. This study investigated the whole sample of female soccer players affiliated to the French Soccer Federation for the 2006-2007 season (n = 57,892). It first aimed at testing the presence of RAE depending on age. Next, we looked at the birthdates of dropout players during the next season (n = 15,285), to test whether relative age accounts for dropout from the activity. The analyses revealed significant differences between the expected and observed distributions for all age categories. Furthermore, a significantly biased distribution of dropout players' birthdates was found for the less than 10, less than 14 and less than 17 categories. As a whole, dropout players are under-represented in Q1 and Q2, but over-represented in Q3 and Q4. This study completes the literature on RAE among females, but the inconsistency of the results calls for more research on this population.

Mots clés: Relative age effect; female; soccer; dropout; dropout.

Domaines: Sociologie; Psychologie; Etudes sur le genre

Nicolas Delorme, Julie Boiché, Michel Raspaud. Relative Age Effect in Female Sport: A Diachronic Examination of Soccer Players. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports, 2010, 20 (3), pp.509-515. ⟨10.1111/j.1600-0838.2009.00979.x⟩. ⟨hal-00383125⟩