from my nerdy research (circa Guatemala):
Of 16 votes cast in Survivor's first two Tribal Councils ever, 13 - or 81 percent - went against tribe members aged 60 and over. Of the 15 people age 50 or older in their first appearance on Survivor's first 10 seasons, five, or 33.3 percent, were one of the first four players to leave the game in their respective seasons.
Yet when one measures how many players from a certain age group reached the endgame vs. how many entered the game, these same contestants are also most likely to reach the final four. Nearly half of all 50-plus contestants reached the final four in the first ten seasons; less than 20 percent of those aged 21-29 did so. When groupings are collapsed into "39 and under" and "40 and older," this measure becomes statistically significant.
Additionally, contestants aged 50 and older are most likely to become part of a game-winning alliance - through Palau, more than one in four such contestants have been in one, while only one in 18 contestants from the larger pool of players aged 29 or younger have been. This also becomes statistically significant when collapsed into "39 and under" and "40 and older"
Finally, original members of tribes that dominated the game were, on average, more than six years older than members of their opposing tribe, despite the apparent need for "physically strong" players who stereotypically would be younger. The difference between the mean ages of contestants who reached the final four (37.4) vs. those who did not (32.5); between the ages of those who became part of a game winning alliance (40.4) and those who did not (32.6); and between the ages of those who were part of a dominant tribe (37.7) and those who were part of a dominated tribe (31.2), all were statistically significant according to a T-test, suggesting some reason beyond random chance for older players' success.
The conclusion from this data is clear: A few early boots aside, the older you are, the more likely you are to do well on Survivor. If you are over age 40 and survive the first four Tribal Councils, you have a much better shot of reaching the final four than your younger competitors, and to a statistically significant degree.
