Santa favours rich kids - study

There was no correlation between Santa visits and the distance to the North Pole (Getty)
There was no correlation between Santa visits and the distance to the North Pole (Getty)

He knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake! Or don't, Santa really doesn't care.

New research has found if you're a poor kid, you shouldn't be surprised if Santa leaves your stocking empty this year.

To parents, who have to fund Santa's largess, this might not come as a surprise. But even when they're not the ones paying, Santa still finds a way to bestow gifts on children who already have it all.

Research published Thursday in the British Medical Journal found Santa is much less likely to visit sick children if they're in a hospital in a poor area.

"It has long been thought that Santa Claus gives presents to nice but not naughty children," say authors John Park and George Tse.

"This is the first study, to our knowledge, to dispel the myth that Santa visits children based on behaviour and suggests socioeconomic deprivation plays a greater role in determining a visit."

They looked at every hospital in the UK with a paediatric ward, and whether Santa made a visit before Christmas last year. While Santa visited most hospitals, he was much more likely to skip wards in deprived areas.

There was no correlation with school absenteeism or conviction rates for young people aged 10 to 17 - which the authors used to determine whether kids in the area had been naughty or nice lately.

"It is the authors' anecdotal experience that children rarely voluntarily admit to being naughty."

There was also no correlation between Santa visits and the distance to the North Pole.

The researchers suggest - tongue in cheek - perhaps Santa is contractually prevented from fixing inequality by lavishing poor kids with gifts.

"Undoubtedly deeper socioeconomic factors are at play, even impacting Santa Claus' abilities to reach out to every child. Whether his contract needs to be reviewed or local Santas employed in 'hard to reach' areas, all we want is for every child to be happy this Christmas."

The researchers also found no preference for hospitals in Scotland or Wales, which surprised them because these countries have "more habitable climates for reindeers".

Newshub.