Childbearing History and Mortality in Later Life

This paper analyzes the impact of childbearing history on later-life mortality for ever-married men and women using high-quality historical longitudinal microlevel data for southern Sweden. The main advantage of using historical data is that it makes it possible to investigate the experience of many birth cohorts with medium to high fertility, thereby facilitating estimation of the effects of the number of births as well as the timing of first and last births. The dataset also allows a comparison of the effects on men with the effects on women, which is of vital importance when assessing the likely mechanisms underlying the relationship between childbearing history and health in later life. The analysis is made using a Cox proportional hazards model on mortality in ages 50 and older, including covariates on number of births, age at first birth, and age at last birth and also controlling for the socioeconomic conditions of the individuals. The results show that number of children ever born negatively affected the survival of women after age 50, while there was no corresponding effect on men, which seems to indicate that women paid most of the price of parenthood, at least in terms of health and longevity. Lund Papers in Economic History ISSN 1101-346X ISRN LUSADG-SAEH-P--03/86--SE+27 © The author(s), 2003 Printed by KFS, Lund, Sweden, 2003 Orders of printed single back issues (no. 1-65) Department of Economic History, Lund University Postal address: P.O. Box 7083, S-220 07 Lund, Sweden Telephone: +46 46 2227475 Telefax: +46 46 131585 Full-text electronic issues (no. 60, 61, 66--) www.ekh.lu.se 1 Childbearing History and Mortality in Later Life Comparing Men and Women in Southern Sweden, 1766–1895