Skip to main content
PMC home page
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences logoLink to Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
. 2003 Aug 7;270(1524):1541–1547. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2003.2400

Reproduction and longevity among the British peerage: the effect of frailty and health selection.

Gabriele Doblhammer 1, Jim Oeppen 1
PMCID: PMC1691410  PMID: 12908973

Abstract

Whether a cost of reproduction exists among humans is still questionable. A major study of aristocratic British families finds a significant positive correlation between parity and late-life mortality, which indicates a trade-off between reproduction and longevity. This result is supported by four other studies, while earlier studies have not found a relationship or came to the opposite conclusion. We show that in natural fertility populations the relationship between fertility and late-life mortality cannot be studied correctly without considering the effects of differences in health and of mortality selection during childbearing ages because these two effects lead to a dampening of the true relationship. If these effects are controlled in Hollingsworth's genealogy of the British peerage a significant trade-off between reproduction and longevity exists for females but not for males.

Full Text

The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (145.8 KB).

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Beral V. Long term effects of childbearing on health. J Epidemiol Community Health. 1985 Dec;39(4):343–346. doi: 10.1136/jech.39.4.343. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Chen J., Carey J. R., Ferris H. Comparative demography of isogenic populations of Caenorhabditis elegans. Exp Gerontol. 2001 Mar;36(3):431–440. doi: 10.1016/s0531-5565(00)00225-4. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Christensen K., Gaist D., Jeune B., Vaupel J. W. A tooth per child? Lancet. 1998 Jul 18;352(9123):204–204. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(05)77810-7. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Doblhammer G. Reproductive history and mortality later in life: a comparative study of England and Wales and Austria. Popul Stud (Camb) 2000 Jul;54(2):169–176. doi: 10.1080/713779087. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Green A., Beral V., Moser K. Mortality in women in relation to their childbearing history. BMJ. 1988 Aug 6;297(6645):391–395. doi: 10.1136/bmj.297.6645.391. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Helle Samuli, Lummaa Virpi, Jokela Jukka. Sons reduced maternal longevity in preindustrial humans. Science. 2002 May 10;296(5570):1085–1085. doi: 10.1126/science.1070106. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Hollingsworth T. H. The demographic background of the peerage, 1603-1938. Eugen Rev. 1965 Jun;57(2):56–66. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Kirkwood T. B. Evolution of ageing. Nature. 1977 Nov 24;270(5635):301–304. doi: 10.1038/270301a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Kirkwood T. B., Rose M. R. Evolution of senescence: late survival sacrificed for reproduction. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 1991 Apr 29;332(1262):15–24. doi: 10.1098/rstb.1991.0028. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Korpelainen H. Fitness, reproduction and longevity among European aristocratic and rural Finnish families in the 1700s and 1800s. Proc Biol Sci. 2000 Sep 7;267(1454):1765–1770. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2000.1208. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Kvåle G., Heuch I., Nilssen S. Parity in relation to mortality and cancer incidence: a prospective study of Norwegian women. Int J Epidemiol. 1994 Aug;23(4):691–699. doi: 10.1093/ije/23.4.691. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Le Bourg E., Thon B., Légaré J., Desjardins B., Charbonneau H. Reproductive life of French-Canadians in the 17-18th centuries: a search for a trade-off between early fecundity and longevity. Exp Gerontol. 1993 May-Jun;28(3):217–232. doi: 10.1016/0531-5565(93)90030-h. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Lillard L. A., Brien M. J., Waite L. J. Premarital cohabitation and subsequent marital dissolution: a matter of self-selection? Demography. 1995 Aug;32(3):437–457. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. Lillard L. A., Panis C. W. Marital status and mortality: the role of health. Demography. 1996 Aug;33(3):313–327. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. Lillard L. A. Simultaneous equations for hazards: marriage duration and fertility timing. J Econom. 1993 Mar;56(1-2):189–217. doi: 10.1016/0304-4076(93)90106-f. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  16. Lillard L. A., Waite L. J. A joint model of marital childbearing and marital disruption. Demography. 1993 Nov;30(4):653–681. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  17. Lund E., Arnesen E., Borgan J. K. Pattern of childbearing and mortality in married women--a national prospective study from Norway. J Epidemiol Community Health. 1990 Sep;44(3):237–240. doi: 10.1136/jech.44.3.237. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  18. Lycett J. E., Dunbar R. I., Voland E. Longevity and the costs of reproduction in a historical human population. Proc Biol Sci. 2000 Jan 7;267(1438):31–35. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2000.0962. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  19. Müller Hans-Georg, Chiou Jeng-Min, Carey James R., Wang Jane-Ling. Fertility and life span: late children enhance female longevity. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2002 May;57(5):B202–B206. doi: 10.1093/gerona/57.5.b202. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  20. Partridge L., Barton N. H. Optimality, mutation and the evolution of ageing. Nature. 1993 Mar 25;362(6418):305–311. doi: 10.1038/362305a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  21. Perls T. T., Alpert L., Fretts R. C. Middle-aged mothers live longer. Nature. 1997 Sep 11;389(6647):133–133. doi: 10.1038/38148. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  22. Tracer David P. Somatic versus reproductive energy allocation in Papua New Guinea: life history theory and public health policy. Am J Hum Biol. 2002 Sep-Oct;14(5):621–626. doi: 10.1002/ajhb.10073. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  23. Voland E., Engel C. Ist das postmenopausale Sterbealter Variable einer fitnessmaximierenden Reproduktionsstrategie? Anthropol Anz. 1986 Mar;44(1):19–34. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  24. Westendorp R. G., Kirkwood T. B. Human longevity at the cost of reproductive success. Nature. 1998 Dec 24;396(6713):743–746. doi: 10.1038/25519. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  25. Westendorp R. G., van Dunne F. M., Kirkwood T. B., Helmerhorst F. M., Huizinga T. W. Optimizing human fertility and survival. Nat Med. 2001 Aug;7(8):873–873. doi: 10.1038/90868. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Associated Data

This section collects any data citations, data availability statements, or supplementary materials included in this article.

Supplementary Materials

Supplementary data file
12908973s01.pdf (174.9KB, pdf)

Articles from Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences are provided here courtesy of The Royal Society

RESOURCES