Is Your Career Determined by the Stars? Western Zodiac Signs and Labor Market Outcomes in Germany

ABSTRACT An increasing share of people believes that zodiac signs predict life outcomes, like career trajectories, even though there is no scientific basis for this claim. Using German administrative data covering more than 11 million observations from 1 million individuals, we investigate whether Zodiac signs determine labor market outcomes. Since Zodiac signs are supposed to affect personality, and personality is associated with wages, Zodiac signs might shape an individual's labor market success in a self‐fulfilling prophecy. Descriptively, we find that Capricorns (born mid‐December to mid‐January) earn, on average, slightly lower wages compared to individuals with other Zodiac signs. When applying a causal regression discontinuity design comparing only individuals born 7 days around the respective cutoffs, we find zero effects of Zodiac signs on wages, education, and managerial status. Given the considerable sample size, the zero effects are likely not caused by low statistical power but show that Zodiac signs do not determine individuals' labor market outcomes.