Professor Luke O'Neill
speaker
1,535 appearances
7 recordings
2 series
first heard Apr 2026
last heard 3 Sep
Professor Luke O'Neill’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 7 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 3.
Appearances
Why would the second child get more infections?
Well, it's very simple.
The older child goes to school or goes to the creche, brings back the infection that they've picked up with the other children.
And the infant or the young child, the second child then, is more likely to be infected because they've got a weaker immune system.
And this is well known.
When you're a baby, your immune system hasn't fully developed.
So if your older brother comes back from the school with an infection, you're more likely to pick it up and get really sick.
So that's the idea.
Whereas the older child didn't have that exposure.
They didn't have an older sibling to bring back the infection.
And that's why the risk of serious infections is higher.
in the second child than in the first.
So it all begins to add up in a very, very nice way.
Now, of course, they do discuss other reasons for this.
Why would the older child earn more?
And in the end, they reckon it's 50% roughly have to do with infection.
So in other words, this is a factor, an important factor in why ultimately the earning power is less in the second child.
The other things, though, have been already speculated upon, and they're probably reasonably robust.
The first is, if you're the older child, you get a lot more attention.
You're born, and the parents are wonderful because, oh, it's a new baby.
Showing 1161–1180 of 1,535 · page 59 of 77
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