What Brits really get up to at Xmas

December 18, 2015 • 8:15 am

by Matthew Cobb

The UK Office of National Statistics tw**ted this graphic showing the frequency of births in England and Wales around the year. As my pal, BBC TV producer Gideon Bradshaw, tw**ted, Merry Sexmas everybody!

Non-UK readers should realise that many people find themselves stuck with family for several days over Xmas. Rail travel is nigh-impossible (Network Rail chooses the holiday period to do major repairs on our 19th century infrastructure), and in the past many shops were closed (that has changed, but the feeling that we are living under siege conditions persists). Under those circumstances, what else is there to do but to increase our fitness?

Or perhaps people get so drunk at New Year that they forget to use contraception… Can readers provide figures for any other countries which would act as a useful comparison?

48 thoughts on “What Brits really get up to at Xmas”

    1. Mine too. My wife’s as well. And my niece.

      My excuse: Earlier that year, my father had just returned from the European theater after the war.

  7. Growing up in the US Middle West (long, cold winters), I was puzzled by the huge percentage of my classmates’ birthdays that were in September and October. I just seemed like a fact of nature like the leaves falling in Autumn.

    When I got older and thought about it …

    2. Yes, I suspect that in sunny California and various tropical climate areas, the spike in B-days around fall is less severe.

  8. Our statistical census bureau has provided a neat brochure of “Top ten” figures with 2009 data that is semi-english. I quote from page 613 through Google Translate and my bold:

    “March, April or May was previously babies’ favorite months to be born – but they
    recent years , July is taken the point position in the birth statistics.

    Although August is usually with the top 5 list and June often follows heels . In 2009 conquered the summer months the entire podium . And July was one for the second year in a row , just as 2003-2004. The period 2005-2007 was not much worse – Then took second place in July .

    What lies behind the change is unclear , but one theory is that we in Sweden have become more planning in our childbearing. Probably we think it is more practical to have children in the summer.”

    So there you may have it, the swedish summer is sacrosanct (but not solely devoted to sex).

    2. Also, meant to bold this:

      What lies behind the change is unclear , but one theory is that we in Sweden have become more planning in our childbearing. Probably we think it is more practical to have children in the summer.

  9. The hump (heh) starting in July and ending in October would seem to indicate weather has more to do with it than holidays.

    Though there’s a good way to test that idea. Australians and New Zealanders have the same western holidays but their summers and winters are reversed. So hey Aussie and Kiwi readers! What does your country birth rate charts look like? Do they show increased births a Xmas + 9 months, or do they show increased births at winter + 9 months?

    1. Hmmm, I neglected another possibility, which is “both.” But we can also check for that too – i.e. look and see whether Aussie and Kiwi charts show a double hump (pun intended).

    2. I got bored and answered my own question. Table 6 on this page gives the statistics for births by month in Australia between 2001 and 2011.

      There is a big, multi-year consistent hump in March. In contrast, there’s no hump in September. So sorry everyone, the “Christmas effect” seems to be a spurious correlation, the real correlation appears to be with cold weather.

      1. I’m in NZ. Two of my siblings, who always take their annual holidays around Christmas/New Year have four kids between them. Two were born on 2 October, one on 4 October, and the fourth in late September.

        Our Christmas holidays are when we have our long summer holidays too of course, so all the “enjoyment” isn’t crammed into such a short period, and we aren’t ever stuck indoors by the weather for days on end winter or summer.

    3. According to Stats NZ, for the period 1980-2013, the 30 most common birthdays were between 12 September and 19 October; the 10 most common were between 22 September and 4 October.

  11. This is hilarious. Entendres abound about ‘Yule logs’, and … well, that is about as far as I should go.

  12. In Math class, when we cover statistics, I point out that birthdays aren’t random – which is why with a random group of about 30 people, there is a high probability of having two people with the same birthday.

    So I poll the class, and we usually find that we get two areas with a high number of births. One is the Sept/Oct region, the other being around April/May.

    I then have them try to come up with reasons why we get those spikes in births, eg. think back 9 months.

    1. With 23 people the probability is >50% if the dates are random, and the probability is even higher if they are non-random.

    2. Hmm. From a mathematical perspective, the interesting result is that if birthdays are randomly and independently distributed, among a group of 30 people there’s a 70% chance of two or more people having the same birthday.

      If that’s the way you teach it, it seems to me that your class may come away misunderstanding the probability theory behind this counterintuitive result, which has nothing to do with the clumping of birthdays. Sure, clumping would increase the probability above 70%, but it’s the 70% figure that most people don’t believe at first.

  13. Some of us celebrate the birth of the little baby Sir Isaac Newton on December 25th. Another virgin birth, but in a different way.

    1. Oops, sorry for gezumping you, Haggis. Another victim of the vagaries of WordPress’s page compositing…

      cr

      1. My fault for failing to “reply” in the right box, cr. at least, like all great minds, we were on the same track.

  16. Interesting that the numbers of births are lowest on the three public holidays – Dec 25, 26 and Jan 1st (my birthday), with brief spike before those dates. I wonder if that reflects scheduling of planned c-sections or inductions to avoid those days.

  18. You will find that many people are born nine month’s after their mother’s birthday.

    Just ask around 🙂

      1. My brother’s birthday is Christmas Day, so naturally my Irish Catholic parents called him…no, not Noel, but Frank. Mind you, it could have been worse: it was nearly Breffny. No wonder Johnny Cash’s ‘A Boy named Sue’ was such a big seller in Ireland: have you seen those male Irish forenames?

        Mind you my English wife was due on Xmas day. As it was, she arrived late (as usual) on 23rd January. So she was called…no, not Noelle, not Holly, not Ivy, but Carol.

  19. Maybe there is something in astrology after all. Us UK Librans, born in late September or early October are well known for being well balanced (i.e we have chips on both shoulders). Possible due to our parents being undernourished/inebriated at the winter solstice.

  20. India is the only country where Children’s day (Nov 14th – Jawaharlal Nehru’s birthday) comes exactly 9 months after Valentines day (Feb 14). Another fact to ponder..

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