I find it irrelevant to specify personal information on my CV, and frankly I do not see why they should be listed in academic applications. What is the advantage for the hiring committing to know if I am 18 or I have 17 children, aside from creating a chance to bias the hiring process with personal beliefs. Is it because they want to know that I am a prodigy child who got his/her PhD at 18 years old, or because if I am a 28 years old female married without children I will want children soon and so I will have to take maternity leave? Is this just an influence of the age/status discrimination in Europe where I see at times that job offers are only open to certain categories of people (i.e.,younger than 30 years old) ?
If I omit this information will my CV be frowned upon? Or will they think I am hiding something? I do not know what I would be hiding because age can probably be guessed from the CV anyway.
Answer
Despite differences in the different EU member states, there were attempts to create a kind of EU standard for CVs. This is called "Europass" and was created together with social partners and national training authorities. According to their website the main scope is:
- Ηelp citizens communicate their skills and qualifications effectively when looking for a job or training.
- Ηelp employers understand the skills and qualifications of the workforce.
- Ηelp education and training authorities define and communicate the content of curricula.
While there might be differences in different industries, in my experience it serves well as a guideline in academia (since you ask on academia SE, I assume this might be your main interest). According to their examples (1, 2) it is perfectly fine to keep personal information like date of birth and sex (and/or gender) out of your CV. Discrimination by age, race and sex/gender is not allowed in the application process. Especially public institutions, such as universities and research institutes have strict rules against discrimination. You shouldn't face any disadvantages by not stating personal information, such as DOB, number of children (...). Besides in most cases it's clearly irrelevant.
Both a friend of mine and I applied in academia in a EU country which wasn't our homecountry relying on the Europass guidelines and both of us got hired. So those guidelines don't appear to be frowned upon.
However: Some years ago it was at least in Germany considered as a standard to include personal information (as already mentioned in another answer*). I think especially people working as a professor for a couple of years simply haven't adapted their CVs to today's standards.
Good luck!
*) On a side note: In school I was thaught, that information, which can give hints on your personality must be included in every case. Especially profession of parents, siblings, age, hobbies. Apparently this was supposed to help HR to find the most fitting person for the job and the company. This was outdated at the time I was at school (and sometimes even considered unprofessional, as I was told during an internship to which I applied using those guidelines), but the curriculum hadn't been updated.
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