Father's age and infant mortality.

Abstract

The role of the fathers age on infant mortality is examined through 1960 data gathered by the National Center for Health Statistics which linked 100000 death and birth certificates. The information on these matched certificates was used to obtain various distributions of infant deaths by mothers and fathers age. Causes were separated by race and by whether or not deaths were caused by congenital malformations. For each mothers age group among whites and nonwhites there was a distinct tendency for the death rate to fall and then rise again as the fathers age increased. The lowest rate generally occurred when the mothers and fathers age were about the same. For deaths from congenital malformations the sampe pattern is suggestively present among white death rates but not among nonwhite rates. Data from births registered in North Carolina in 1968 which included information on parents education were examined to see if variations in infant mortality rates with the fathers age result from irregular social circumstances such as the practice of less educated men to marry much younger women. The education level among both whites and nonwhites of older fathers and younger mothers were lower in every mothers age group than for couples roughly the same age. With these figures mortality associated with younger fathers tended to increase; with older fathers it tended to decrease. Deaths from congenital malformations showed no tendency toward this trend which contrasted sharpely with trends from the 1st study. The conclusion is reached that some support is found for the hypothesis that infant mortality increases as either the fathers age or the span between the mothers and fathers age increases and that except in the case of congenital malformations this results in part from socioeconomic factors.