Fertility and post‐reproductive longevity

Smith, Ken R.; Mineau, Geraldine P.; Bean, Lee L.

doi:10.1080/19485565.2002.9989058

Cited by 87 publications

(134 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…Given that fertility patterns are transmitted across generations (Anderton et al, 1987;Gagnon and Heyer, 2001b), the capacity of children to provide assistance to their parents may be further reduced in high parity lineages. This argument suggests that, in natural fertility populations, parents with many children could be adversely rather than beneficially affected, since their children will devote resources to their own children (Smith et al, 2002).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It also would have impeached or slowed down the accumulation of critical resources for later days. On the other hand, women bearing children at very old age could have experienced adverse health consequences, because of an extended period of child rearing (Smith et al, 2002) during years in which individuals' frailty increases dramatically.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moreover, as pointed out by Smith et al (Smith et al, 2002), upward genealogical transfer may be limited by the fact that adult children are themselves rearing offspring of their own. Given that fertility patterns are transmitted across generations (Anderton et al, 1987;Gagnon and Heyer, 2001b), the capacity of children to provide assistance to their parents may be further reduced in high parity lineages.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Based on the theory of natural selection, bio-demographers posit deeper theoretical connections between the two phenomena. Natural selection has no interest in longevity per se but indirectly moulds it through action on reproductive success (Charlesworth, 1994;Hamilton, 1966), which depends on survival of the parents (Kirkwood, 1997;Smith et al, 2002;Vaupel et al, 1998;Wachter et al, 1997;Westendorp and Kirkwood, 1998). There are three evolutionary-induced mechanics through which fertility may interact with longevity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Far less is known about the influences of fertility patterns on longevity of both men and women. Following Smith and colleagues (Smith et al, 2002), we address this question from evolutionary and social perspectives. We briefly review the theories on both subjects and, using historical data from Québec, attempt a replication the original study based on the Utah population by Smith et al, and compare the results obtained from the two populations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Postreproductive Longevity in a Natural Fertility Population

Gagnon

Mazan

Desjardins

et al. 2008

Kinship and Demographic Behavior in the Past

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Fertility patterns may be useful markers for rates of biological aging. Based on evolutionary and socio-demographic approaches to historical data from the population of Québec (taken from the Registre de population du Québec ancien at the University of Montreal), we examine the effects of reproduction on longevity. Using Cox hazard models on about 2,000 couples married in the colony before 1740, we show that women bearing their last child late in life had longer post-reproductive lives, suggesting that late menopause is associated with an overall slower rate of aging. Increased parity had an opposite, detrimental effect on women's post-reproductive survival. On the other hand, husband's longevity was less sensitive to parity and reproductive history. For husbands increased effective family size (EFS; the number of children who survived up to age 18) in a "compressed" reproductive time-span meant higher chances for survival past age 60.Children may serve as strong economical assets on farmstead during colonization, which would mostly benefit fathers. In a collaborative effort to unveil post-reproductive aging patterns in historical populations, the results are compared to previous analyses conducted on the Utah population database and evolutionary and socio-demographic theories addressed in light of the results.3

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Postreproductive Longevity in a Natural Fertility Population

Gagnon

Mazan

Desjardins

et al. 2008

Kinship and Demographic Behavior in the Past

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Mortality and fertility rates in humans and chimpanzees: How within‐species variation complicates cross‐species comparisons

Hawkes

Smith

Robson

2009

American J Hum Biol

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A grandmother hypothesis may explain why humans evolved greater longevity while continuing to end female fertility at about the same age as do the other great apes. With that grandmother hypothesis in mind, we sought to compare age-specific mortality and fertility rates between humans and chimpanzees, our closest living relatives, and found two puzzles. First, we expected that lower adult mortality in humans would be associated with slower senescence, but the rate of chimpanzee demographic aging falls within the human range. Second, we expected declines in age-specific fertility to be similar in the two species but instead of falling in the thirties as it does in women, fertility remains high into the forties in some chimpanzee populations. We report these puzzles using data from nine human populations and both wild and captive chimpanzees, and suggest that systematic differences in the heterogeneity of surviving adults may explain them.

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Is there a trade‐off between fertility and longevity? A comparative study of women from three large historical databases accounting for mortality selection

Gagnon

Smith

Tremblay

et al. 2009

American J Hum Biol

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138

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Frontier populations provide exceptional opportunities to test the hypothesis of a trade-off between fertility and longevity. In such populations, mechanisms favoring reproduction usually find fertile ground, and if these mechanisms reduce longevity, demographers should observe higher postreproductive mortality among highly fertile women. We test this hypothesis using complete female reproductive histories from three large demographic databases: the Registre de la population du Québec ancien (Université de Montréal), which covers the first centuries of settlement in Quebec; the BALSAC database (Université du Québec à Chicoutimi), including comprehensive records for the Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean (SLSJ) in Quebec in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; and the Utah Population Database (University of Utah), including all individuals who experienced a vital event on the Mormon Trail and their descendants. Together, the three samples allow for comparisons over time and space, and represent one of the largest set of natural fertility cohorts used to simultaneously assess reproduction and longevity. Using survival analyses, we found a negative influence of parity and a positive influence of age at last child on postreproductive survival in the three populations, as well as a significant interaction between these two variables. The effect sizes of all these parameters were remarkably similar in the three samples. However, we found little evidence that early fertility affects postreproductive survival. The use of Heckman’s procedure assessing the impact of mortality selection during reproductive ages did not appreciably alter these results. We conclude our empirical investigation by discussing the advantages of comparative approaches. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 21:533–540, 2009.

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Fertility and post‐reproductive longevity

Cited by 87 publications

References 55 publications

Postreproductive Longevity in a Natural Fertility Population

Postreproductive Longevity in a Natural Fertility Population

Mortality and fertility rates in humans and chimpanzees: How within‐species variation complicates cross‐species comparisons

Is there a trade‐off between fertility and longevity? A comparative study of women from three large historical databases accounting for mortality selection

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