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  • In a comparative perspective life expectancy is

    2018-11-02

    In a comparative perspective, life expectancy is high in Sweden, meaning that even a mother who gives birth at the very advanced age of 50 would be overwhelmingly likely to still be alive when her child is aged 19. Over 80% of women born in Sweden in the 1940 cohort were still alive by age 70 (Statistics Sweden, 2010). By examining self-reported health, biomarkers of health, and the health behaviours of the offspring in late adolescence we are able to test whether maternal age is associated with health before considerations regarding lifespan overlap are relevant for most respondents. Although the parents of most teenage respondents will not have died, it is likely that the oldest mothers and fathers would already have declining health. Seeing one’s parent with cancer or developing Alzheimer’s disease could clearly be a stressful and distressing experience that could in turn have a negative impact on the child. Even if there was not a direct impact upon the physical health of the child, such an experience might increase the likelihood of the offspring suffering from anxiety or depression (Compas et al., 1994; Armistead, Klein, & Forehand, 1995), which may increase the risk of engaging in negative health behaviours like excessive alcohol consumption (Dixit & Crum, 2000). Parenting AC220 inhibitor is likely to vary by the age of the mother, even if this is largely explained by selection. Older parents are more likely to have elected to have a child, and may also be happier than younger parents (Myrskylä & Margolis, 2014). On the other hand, research indicates that older parents spend less time with their children (Sayer, Bianchi &, Robinson, 2004). Time use data from the United States suggests that mothers who are aged 45–54 spend 30min less time per day with their children than parents who are aged 25–34, and parents who are aged 55–64 spend 40min less time per day after adjusting for number of children and the presence of pre-school children (Sayer et al., 2004). These are quite substantial differences when considering that parental time and attention are critically important dimensions of investment in children (McLanahan & Sandefur, 1994), and will be related to the ability of the parents to encourage healthy behaviours, and discourage unhealthy ones (Barnes, Reifman, Farrell, & Dintcheff, 2000). Smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, and poor cardiovascular fitness are all strongly associated with mortality (Blair et al., 1996; Ezzati & Lopez, 2003; Fuller, 2011). Furthermore, due to their addictive nature, patterns of cigarette and alcohol consumption are correlated over the life course, and cohort studies often show a rise in consumption with increasing age (Grant & Dawson, 1997; Faggiano, Versino, & Lemma, 2001). Patterns of exercise and sedentary activities are also correlated over the life course (Biddle, Pearson, Ross, & Braithwaite, 2010; Midlöv, Leijon, Sundquist, Sundquist, & Johansson, 2014). This previous research suggests that habits and behaviours can become ingrained over time. Although we do not have longitudinal data, this means that if maternal age is associated with health behaviours in late adolescence we can speculate that these behaviours may mediate the relationship between maternal age at the time of birth and health outcomes in later adulthood for the offspring.
    Data In this study we restrict our analyses to the random sample of 2500 individuals with two Swedish born parents. After considering non-response on some items, we have data on 1236 individuals for our analyses. We choose to focus upon respondents with two Swedish born parents so that we could comprehensively adjust for the socioeconomic status of the parents; that data was less available for respondents with an Iranian or Yugoslavian national origin. To this effect the survey data is bolstered by linkages to the Swedish administrative registers, including the occupational class of the father in 1990, the educational attainment of the mother in 2009 (the year of the survey), and the income of the father in 2009. Adjusting for parental SES is important as studies consistently demonstrate that early life investment is associated with long-term outcomes (Campbell et al., 2014). Our main explanatory variable is maternal age at the time of birth. Data on the year and month of birth of the mother and survey respondents were drawn from the population registers. Fig. 1 shows how the distribution of maternal age in our analytical sample compares to the distribution of maternal age in Sweden as a whole in 1990.