Abstract
Using historical data from the Utah Population Database, this analysis finds significant, consistent, but small adverse mortality effects for mothers after age 50 who had mostly sons. Examination of age-dependent effects indicates that this association increases with mother’s age. Additionally, mothers who had mostly daughters faced mortality risks that increased with age. Offspring sex composition did not have a significant effect on paternal mortality. Interaction analyses were conducted to examine the effect of offspring sex composition with regard to historical period, residential location, socioeconomic status, and childhood survival. No other interactions were found to be statistically significant. Having mostly boys remained detrimental to maternal mortality regardless of childhood survival.
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Acknowledgements
We wish to thank the Pedigree and Population Resource of the Huntsman Cancer Institute, University of Utah for providing the data and valuable computing support. This work was also supported by NIH grant AG022095 (The Utah Study of Fertility, Longevity, and Aging).
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Harrell, C.J., Smith, K.R. & Mineau, G.P. Are Girls Good and Boys Bad for Parental Longevity?. Hum Nat 19, 56–69 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-008-9028-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-008-9028-2