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Oldest children tend to choose careers that either put them in positions of authority or allow them to work independently. Their need to perform well makes them so anxious as employees that they tend to do less well than if they are in charge or are working without supervision. As employees they can often find themselves in conflict or at odds with their boss if the boss is not also a hard-working oldest. They know better than their boss about how a job “ought” to be done.

They go into helping professions or leadership positions to gain admiration and respect. They often become managers, ministers, teachers, lawyers, and judges. They also do well in intellectual work that requires disciplined, abstract thought with little emphasis on personal relationships — areas such as engineering, physics, higher mathematics, architecture, and chemistry. They are less often in creative work and if they are, they tend to be more conventional than later-birth-order artists.

Eminent scientists and mathematicians are overrepresented by oldest sons. Well-known theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, author of A Complete History of Time, is the oldest of four children. He grew up wanting to figure out how things worked and developed the modest goal in life of having “complete understanding of the universe.”

Oldests are also frequently found in academic careers, especially in medicine, law, and psychology. Pioneering heart surgeon William DeVries is an oldest child. Albert Schweitzer, missionary-physician, philosopher, theologian, and music scholar, was an oldest who combined both the intellectual and the nurturing capacities of oldests in his life’s work.

Oldests may seek positions of authority where they can use their natural aura of authority in either an ambitious climb to the top or an idealistic effort to change the world for the better. Oldest child Rene Levesque, former leader of the Parti Quebecois in Canada, fought for the sovereignty of Quebec by leading the separatist movement away from terrorism and into mainstream politics.