What happens to births on Labor Day and Thanksgiving?

Published by Birthday Traffic · September 15, 2026 · Sources and method

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• 66%births on Labor Dayof matched control days
• 60%births on Thanksgiving Dayof matched control days
• 21years compared1994–2014
• ±14 dayscontrol dayssame weekday, same year

A fixed holiday like December 25 is easy to spot in a birthday ranking, because it is always the same date. Labor Day and Thanksgiving fall on a different date each year, so their effect is spread across several dates. Measured against same-weekday control days in the same year, both record fewer births than those control days in every one of the 21 years.

Labor Day

Labor Day is the first Monday in September, under the federal holiday rule published by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. The dates below are derived from that rule in code.

Across the 21 years, Labor Day recorded 171,820 births where its control days averaged 261,059 over the same number of days: a ratio of 65.8% of the control level, a difference of 89,239 recorded births between the two sets of days. Year by year the ratio ranges from 60.4% to 73.2%, averaging 66.0%, and it is below the control level in 21 of 21 years. The difference is between two sets of recorded days.

Control days: the same weekday one and two weeks before and after, inside the same year (four controls in every year). Total exposure: 84 control days for 21 holiday days.

Thanksgiving Day

Thanksgiving Day is the fourth Thursday in November, under the federal holiday rule published by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. The dates below are derived from that rule in code.

Across the 21 years, Thanksgiving Day recorded 156,624 births where its control days averaged 262,307 over the same number of days: a ratio of 59.7% of the control level, a difference of 105,683 recorded births between the two sets of days. Year by year the ratio ranges from 54.0% to 69.2%, averaging 59.9%, and it is below the control level in 21 of 21 years. The difference is between two sets of recorded days.

Control days: the same weekday one and two weeks before and after, inside the same year (four controls in every year). Total exposure: 84 control days for 21 holiday days.

Method, in full

1. Derive each year's holiday date from the OPM rule: first Monday in September, fourth Thursday in November.
2. Take the U.S. daily birth count for that date from 85,712,738 recorded U.S. births on 7,670 calendar dates, 1994–2014.
3. Take the same weekday at −14, −7, +7 and +14 days, within the same calendar year. Drop any control that is itself one of the studied holidays.
4. Compare the holiday count with the mean of its controls, as a ratio. The figures reported are the observed ratio, its year-by-year range and the number of years below the control level, which is what 21 paired observations support.

What this shows

This is a matched calendar comparison. It identifies an association between these holiday dates and lower recorded daily counts. Scheduling of inductions and caesareans, staffing, and registration or reporting practice are all consistent with the pattern. The range quoted is the variation across years.

Because these holidays move, a date such as September 4 was Labor Day in some of the 21 years, so part of its total is inside this comparison. Its own page says how many years that was.

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