Poulain Michel, Herm Anne, Chambre Dany, Pes Gianni
a Estonian Institute for Population Studies , Tallinn University , Tallinn , Estonia.
b Institute for the Analysis of Change in Historical and Contemporary Societies (IACCHOS) , Université Catholique de Louvain , Louvain-la-Neuve , Belgium.
Biodemography Soc Biol. 2016;62(3):262-274. doi: 10.1080/19485565.2016.1207502.
The question of whether mothers' fertility history influences their post-reproductive survival has been addressed frequently in the scientific literature. Using data from Villagrande Strisaili, Sardinia, where longevity is higher than anywhere else in Europe, we analyzed the relationship between the fertility pattern of mothers who survived past age 50 (n = 539) and their post-reproductive lifespan. We find that, after adjustment for potential confounders (mothers' birth cohort, survival of spouse), the mothers who on average delivered their children later displayed a reduced mortality risk (‒2.9 percent for each additional year), supporting previously reported findings. We also find that a male-skewed offspring ratio was associated with decreased mortality risk of mothers, with longer survival of mothers who delivered their sons above age 35 (p = 0.005), a result not found for daughters. So far, no biological explanation has been suggested for the positive effect of delivering sons later in life. We conjecture that in our dataset stronger nonbiological factors such as gender-specific sociocultural and economic factors may have masked the negative effect reported in other populations, for which a biological explanation was proposed.
母亲的生育史是否会影响她们绝经后的生存这一问题，在科学文献中已被频繁探讨。我们利用来自撒丁岛维拉格兰德·斯特里萨伊利的数据进行分析，该地区的长寿率高于欧洲其他任何地方。我们分析了50岁以上存活母亲（n = 539）的生育模式与其绝经后寿命之间的关系。我们发现，在对潜在混杂因素（母亲的出生队列、配偶的存活情况）进行调整后，平均生育年龄较晚的母亲死亡率风险降低（每增加一岁降低2.9%），这支持了之前报道的研究结果。我们还发现，后代性别比偏向男性与母亲的死亡率风险降低有关，35岁以上生育儿子的母亲存活时间更长（p = 0.005），而生女儿则未发现此结果。到目前为止，尚未有人对晚育儿子的积极影响提出生物学解释。我们推测，在我们的数据集中，诸如特定性别的社会文化和经济因素等更强的非生物学因素，可能掩盖了其他人群中所报道的负面影响，而对于那些负面影响曾有人提出过生物学解释。
