Avugos Simcha, Malul Michal
Levinsky-Wingate Academic Center-Wingate Campus, Netanya, Israel.
Front Sports Act Living. 2025 Aug 29;7:1644415. doi: 10.3389/fspor.2025.1644415. eCollection 2025.
In sports, the term refers to the asymmetrical distribution of athletes based on their birth dates relative to an arbitrary cut-off date. Some studies indicate that athletes who were born shortly after this cut-off tend to have higher representation in elite sports leagues compared to those who were born later in the year. Yet the literature presents inconsistencies in empirical support for this effect. The aim of this study, therefore, was to examine the relative age effect in female basketball players from the Israeli Premier League, while distinguishing between domestic and foreign players ( = 215, M = 24.08 years, SD = 5.17; and = 120, M = 30.33 years, SD = 3.68, respectively), and examining two alternative cut-off dates (January 1 and September 1). Data were collected over six seasons, 2018-2024. Chi-square values and odds ratios were calculated to examine the distribution of birth quarters compared to uniform distribution in general, and to Israeli and U.S. live birth data. The findings reveal that the relative age effect was insignificant among the players, regardless of their nationality. While a higher number of players were found to have been born in the second quarter of the year, this difference was statistically insignificant, regardless of whether a uniform distribution of births or normative population values were applied. As such, the findings of the current study do not support the existence of selection bias among coaches based on the birth dates of female professional basketball players in Israel.
在体育领域，该术语指的是运动员根据其出生日期相对于一个任意截止日期的不对称分布。一些研究表明，与同年晚些时候出生的运动员相比，在这个截止日期后不久出生的运动员在精英体育联盟中的代表性往往更高。然而，文献中对于这种效应的实证支持存在不一致之处。因此，本研究的目的是考察以色列超级联赛中女子篮球运动员的相对年龄效应，同时区分本土球员和外籍球员（分别为 = 215人，M = 24.08岁，SD = 5.17；以及 = 120人，M = 30.33岁，SD = 3.68），并考察两个替代截止日期（1月1日和9月1日）。数据收集于2018 - 2024年的六个赛季。计算卡方值和优势比，以检验出生季度的分布与总体均匀分布相比，以及与以色列和美国的出生数据相比的情况。研究结果表明，无论球员国籍如何，相对年龄效应在这些球员中都不显著。虽然发现有更多球员出生在一年中的第二季度，但无论应用出生的均匀分布还是标准人口值，这种差异在统计学上都不显著。因此，本研究的结果不支持以色列女子职业篮球运动员的出生日期会导致教练存在选择偏差这一观点。
