Abstract
People are having children later in life. The consequences for offspring adult survival have been little studied due to the need for long follow-up linked to parental data and most research has considered offspring survival only in early life. We used Swedish registry data to examine all-cause and cause-specific adult mortality (293,470 deaths among 5,204,433 people, followed up to a maximum of 80 years old) in relation to parental age. For most common causes of death adult survival was improved in the offspring of older parents (HR for all-cause survival was 0.96 (95% CI: 0.96, 0.97) and 0.98 (0.97, 0.98) per five years of maternal and paternal age, respectively). The childhood environment provided by older parents may more than compensate for any physiological disadvantages. Within-family analyses suggested stronger benefits of advanced parental age. This emphasises the importance of secular trends; a parent’s later children were born into a wealthier, healthier world. Sibling-comparison analyses can best assess individual family planning choices, but our results suggested a vulnerability to selection bias when there is extensive censoring. We consider the numerous causal and non-causal mechanisms which can link parental age and offspring survival, and the difficulty of separating them with currently available data.
Highlights
IntroductionThe consequences for offspring adult survival have been little studied due to the need for long follow-up linked to parental data and most research has considered offspring survival only in early life
People are having children later in life
We found that negative linear associations between parental age and offspring mortality from primary analyses became slightly stronger with adjustment for parental survival to the offspring’s 35th birthday, consistent in direction with these previous results but insufficient in magnitude to be the major mechanism by which parental age affects offspring survival
Summary
The consequences for offspring adult survival have been little studied due to the need for long follow-up linked to parental data and most research has considered offspring survival only in early life. Within-family analyses suggested stronger benefits of advanced parental age This emphasises the importance of secular trends; a parent’s later children were born into a wealthier, healthier world. We consider the numerous causal and non-causal mechanisms which can link parental age and offspring survival, and the difficulty of separating them with currently available data. One recent publication[7] used the Swedish multi-generation register, linked to other national registers, to provide population-scale data on parental age and all-cause mortality for offspring aged up to 74 years, including data on family structure and socioeconomic position (SEP). Variable Mothers Age at offspring birth (years) Non-manual worker Completed secondary school Alive when offspring 16 Alive when offspring 40 Fathers Age at offspring birth (years) Non-manual worker Completed secondary school Alive when offspring 16 Alive when offspring 40 Offspring Non-manual worker Completed secondary school Male First-born Smoker at age 18a Left-handeda Date of birth Birth weight (kg) Birth length (cm) Height at age 18 (cm)a BMI at age 18 (kg m−2)a SBP at age 18 (mm Hg)a DBP at age 18 (mm Hg)a Intelligence at age 18a Non-cognitive ability at age 18a
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