Later-Life Mortality and Longevity in Late-18th and 19th-Century Cohorts. Where Are We Now, and Where Are We Heading?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51964/hlcs9336Keywords:
Socioeconomic status, Social support, Household, Environmental effects, Sex differences, Historical trends, 19th Century, Literature review, Later-life mortality, LongevityAbstract
The limits to human lifespan are a widely discussed topic. Yet, later-life mortality and longevity are generally studied from a genetic perspective, while the social dimension has received less attention. This paper gives a systematic overview of trends in later-life mortality and longevity for cohorts that were born in the late 18th and 19th century, and shows that the average population and the top survivors from cohorts born between 1800 and 1850 were already growing older. These improvements in human survival were similar for both of the sexes among the top survivors, whereas gender equality in the life expectancy at age 50 grew rapidly in cohorts born after 1880. Differences between populations were determined by the disease environment, availability of food, and local diets, while lifestyles and social support from spouses and kin affected later-life expectancy and longevity within these populations. These findings have major implications on how we view the demographic and epidemiological transition, and forces us to reconsider existing explanations for improvements in survival during the 19th century. However, in order to find out the determinants of later-life mortality, external validity of results, blind spots due to missing data, and familial clustering need to be studied more thoroughly.
Downloads
References
Alter, G., Dribe, M. & Van Poppel, F. W. A. (2007). Widowhood, family size, and postreproductivemortality: A comparative analysis of three populations in nineteenth-century Europe. Demography,44(4), 785–806.DOI: 10.1353/dem.2007.0037
Ash, A. S., Kroll-Desrosiers, A. R., Hoaglin, D. C., Christensen, K., Fang, H. & Perls, T. T. (2015). Aremembers of long-lived families healthier than their equally long-lived peers? Evidence from theLong Life Family Study. The Journals of Gerontology Series A: Biological Sciences and MedicalSciences, 70(8), 971–976.DOI: 10.1093/gerona/glv015
Atzmon, G., Schechter, C., Greiner, W., Davidson, D., Rennert, G. & Barzilai, N. (2004). ClinicalPhenotype of Families with Longevity. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 52(2), 274–277.DOI: 10.1111/j.1532-5415.2004.52068.
Bengtsson, T. & Broström, G. (2009). Do conditions in early life affect old-age mortality directly andindirectly? Evidence from 19th-century rural Sweden. Social Science & Medicine, 68(9), 1583–1590.DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2009.02.020
Bengtsson, T. & Dribe, M. (2011). The late emergence of socioeconomic mortality differentials: Amicro-level study of adult mortality in southern Sweden 1815–1968. Explorations in EconomicHistory, 48(3), 389–400 DOI: 10.1016/j.eeh.2011.05.005
Bengtsson, T. & Lindström, M. (2003). Airborne infectious diseases during infancy and mortality in laterlife in southern Sweden, 1766-1894. International Journal of Epidemiology, 32(2), 286–294.DOI: 10.1093/ije/dyg061
Bengtsson, T. & Lindström, M. (2000). Childhood misery and disease in later life: The effects on mortalityin old age of hazards experienced in early life, southern Sweden, 1760-1894. Population Studies,54(3), 263–277.DOI: 10.1080/713779096
Breschi, M., Derosas, R., Manfredini, M. & Lee, J. Z. (2004). Mortality and environment in threeEmilian, Tuscan, and Venetian communities, 1800-1883. In T. Bengtsson, C. Campbell & J. Z. Lee(Eds.), Life under pressure: Mortality and living standards in Europea and Asia, 1700-1900 (pp.209–251). Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.
Campbell, C., Lee, J. Z., Bengtsson, T., Broström, G., Rettaroli, R. & Tsuya, N. O. (2004). Economicstress and mortality. In T. Bengtsson, C. Campbell, & J. Z. Lee (Eds.), Life under pressure: Mortalityand living standards in Europea and Asia, 1700-1900 (pp. 61–84). Cambridge, Massachusetts:The MIT Press.
Caselli, G., Peracchi, F., Barbi, E. & Lipsi, R. M. (2003). Differential mortality and the design of theItalian system of public pensions. Labour, 17, 45-78.DOI: 10.1111/1467-9914.17
Christensen, K., McGue, M., Petersen, I., Jeune, B. & Vaupel, J. W. (2008). Exceptional longevity doesnot result in excessive levels of disability. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of theUnited States of America, 105(36), 13274–13279.DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0804931105
Cilliers, J. & Fourie, J. (2012). New estimates of settler life span and other demographic trends in SouthAfrica, 1652-1948. Economic History of Developing Regions, 27(2), 61–86.DOI: 10.1080/20780389.2012.745663
Cournil, A., Legay, J.M., & Schächter, F. (2000). Evidence of sex-linked effects on the inheritance ofhuman longevity : a population-based study in the Valserine valley (French Jura), 18 – 20thcenturies. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 267(1447), 1021–1025.DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2000.1105
Devos, I. & Van Rossem, T. (2015). Urban health penalties: Estimates of life expectancies in Belgiancities, 1846-1910. Journal of Belgian History, 45(4), 74-109.Handle: 1854/LU-7002539
Doblhammer, G., Van den Berg, G. J. & Lumey, L. H. (2013). A re-analysis of the long-term effects onlife expectancy of the Great Finnish Famine of 1866-68. Population Studies, 67(3), 309–322.DOI: 10.1080/00324728.2013.809140
Donrovich, R., Puschmann, P. & Matthijs, K. (2014). Rivalry, solidarity, and longevity among siblings:A life course approach to the impact of sibship composition and birth order on later life mortalityrisk, Antwerp (1846–1920). Demographic Research, 31, 1167–1198.DOI: 10.4054/DemRes.2014.31.38
Gagnon, A. & Mazan, R. (2009). Does exposure to infectious diseases in infancy affect old-agemortality? Evidence from a pre-industrial population. Social Science & Medicine, 68(9), 1609–1616.DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2009.02.008
Gagnon, A., Smith, K. R., Tremblay, M., Vézina, H., Paré, P.P. & Desjardins, B. (2009). Is there a tradeoff between fertility and longevity? A comparative study of women from three large historicaldatabases accounting for mortality selection. American Journal of Human Biology, 21(4), 533–540.DOI: 10.1002/ajhb.20893
Gellatly, C. & Störmer, C. (2015). How does marriage affect length of life? Analysis of a Frenchhistorical dataset. In: The Europe of Women (pp. 1–24). Paper presented at The Europe ofWomen international conference, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. 26-27 November 2015.
Gögele, M., Pattaro, C., Fuchsberger, C., Minelli, C., Pramstaller, P. P. & Wjst, M. (2011). Heritabilityanalysis of life span in a semi-isolated population followed across four centuries reveals thepresence of pleiotropy between life span and reproduction. The Journals of Gerontology SeriesA: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences, 66(1), 26–37.DOI: 10.1093/gerona/glq163
Hanson, H. A. & Smith, K. R. (2013). Early origins of longevity: Prenatal exposures to food shortageamong early Utah pioneers. Journal of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease, 4(2),170–181.DOI: 10.1017/S2040174412000682
Hanson, H. A., Smith, K. R. & Mineau, G. P. (2015, Nov.). Peas in a pod: A historical study of spatialclustering of kin and familial aggregation of mortality using the Utah Population Database. Paperpresented at the meeting of the Social Science History Association, Baltimore, MD.
Hedefalk, F., Harrie, L. & Svensson, P. (2015). Methods to create a longitudinal integrated demographicand geographic database on the micro-level. Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative andInterdisciplinary History, 48(3), 153–173.DOI: 10.1080/01615440.2015.1016645
Helle, S., Lummaa, V. & Jokela, J. (2005). Are reproductive and somatic senescence coupled in humans?Late, but not early, reproduction correlated with longevity in historical Sami women. Proceedingsof the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 272(1558), 29–37.DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2004.2944
Herskind, A. M., McGue, M., Holm, N. V., Sørensen, T. I. A., Harvald, B. & Vaupel, J. W. (1996).The heritability of human longevity: A population-based study of 2872 Danish twin pairs born1870–1900. Human Genetics, 97(3), 319–323.DOI: 10.1007/BF02185763
Houde, L., Tremblay, M. & Vézina, H. (2008). Intergenerational and genealogical approaches for thestudy of longevity in the Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean population. Human Nature, 19(1), 70–86.DOI: 10.1007/s12110-008-9031-7
Human Mortality Database (retrieved 2016). University of California, Berkeley (USA), and Max PlanckInstitute for Demographic Research (Germany). Retrieved 16-11-2016 from www.mortality.org.
Hurt, L. S., Ronsmans, C. & Thomas, S. L. (2006). The effect of number of births on women's mortality:Systematic review of the evidence for women who have completed their childbearing. PopulationStudies, 60(1), 55–71.DOI: 10.1080/00324720500436011
Kannisto, V. (2001). Mode and dispersion of the length of life. Population: An English Selection, 13(1),159–171.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3030264
Kannisto, V., Christensen, K. & Vaupel, J. W. (1997). No increased mortality in later life for cohortsborn during famine. American Journal of Epidemiology, 145(11), 987–994.DOI: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.aje.a009067
Karlsson, L. (2016). Advanced ages at death in Sápmi during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries:With special attention to longevity among the Sami population. Historical Methods: A Journalof Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History, 49(1), 34–49.DOI: 10.1080/01615440.2015.1033581
Kerber, R. A., O'Brien, E., Smith, K. R. & Cawthon, R. M. (2001). Familial excess longevity in Utahgenealogies. The Journals of Gerontology Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences,56(3), B130–B139.DOI: 10.1093/gerona/56.3.B130
Korpelainen, H. (2000). Fitness, reproduction and longevity among European aristocratic andrural Finnish families in the 1700s and 1800s. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: BiologicalSciences, 267(1454), 1765–1770. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2000.1208
Le Bourg, E. (2007). Does reproduction decrease longevity in human beings? Ageing Research Reviews,6(2), 141–149.DOI: 10.1016/j.arr.2007.04.002
Le Bourg, E., Thon, B., Légaré, J., Desjardins, B. & Charbonneau, H. (1993). Reproductive life ofFrench-Canadians in the 17-18th centuries: A search for a trade-off Between early fecundity andlongevity. Experimental Gerontology, 28(3), 217–232.DOI: 10.1016/0531-5565(93)90030-H
Lee, J. Z., Campbell, C., Feng, W., Manfredini, M., Oris, M., & Tsuya, N. O. (2004). Society andmortality. In: T. Bengtsson, C. Campbell & J. Z. Lee (Eds.), Life under pressure: Mortality andliving standards in Europea and Asia, 1700-1900 (pp. 107–132). Cambridge, MA: The MITPress.
Lindahl-Jacobsen, R., Hanson, H. A., Oksuzyan, A., Mineau, G. P., Christensen, K. & Smith, K. R.(2013). The male-female health-survival paradox and sex differences in cohort life expectancy inUtah, Denmark, and Sweden 1850-1910. Annals of Epidemiology, 23(4), 161–166.DOI: 10.1016/j.annepidem.2013.02.001
Lindeboom, M., Portrait, F. & Van den Berg, G. J. (2010). Long-run effects on longevity of a nutritionalshock early in life: The Dutch potato famine of 1846-1847. Journal of Health Economics, 29(5),617–629.DOI: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2010.06.001
Lycett, J. E., Dunbar, R. I. M. & Voland, E. (2000). Longevity and the costs of reproduction in a historicalhuman population. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Science, 267(1438), 31–35.DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2000.0962
Matthijs, K., Van de Putte, B. & Vlietinck, R. (2002). The inheritance of longevity in a Flemish village.European Journal of Population, 18(1), 59–81.DOI: 10.1023/A:1013891021803
Mitchell, B. D., Hsueh, W. C., King, T. M., Pollin, T. I., Sorkin, J., Agarwala, R., ... & Shuldiner, A. R.(2001). Heritability of life span in the Old Order Amish. American Journal of Medical Genetics,102(4), 346–352.DOI: 10.1002/ajmg.1483
Newman, A. B., Lee, J. H., Simonsick, E. M., Walston, J. D., Yashin, Anatoli, I., Barral, S., ... Hadley, E.(2011). Health and function of participants in the long life family study: A comparison with othercohorts. Aging, 3(1), 63–76.DOI: 10.18632/aging.100242
Oeppen, J. & Vaupel, J.W. (2002). Broken limits to life expectancy. Science, 296(5570), 1029-1031.DOI: 10.1126/science.1069675
Pes, G. M., Tolu, F., Poulain, M., Errigo, A., Masala, S., Pietrobelli, A., ... Maioli, M. (2013). Lifestyleand nutrition related to male longevity in Sardinia: An ecological study. Nutrition, Metabolismand Cardiovascular Diseases, 23(3), 212–219.DOI: 10.1016/j.numecd.2011.05.004
Poulain, M., Herm, A. & Pes, G. (2013). The Blue Zones: Areas of exceptional longevity around theworld. Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, 11, 87–108.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/43050798
Poulain, M., Pes, G. M., Grasland, C., Carru, C., Ferrucci, L., Baggio, G., … Deiana, L. (2004).Identification of a geographic area characterized by extreme longevity in the Sardinia island: theAKEA study. Experimental Gerontology, 39(9), 1423–1429.DOI: 10.1016/j.exger.2004.06.016
Quaranta, L. (2013). Scarred for life: How conditions in early life affect socioeconomic status,reproduction and mortality in Southern Sweden, 1813-1968. Lund: Lund University.
Robine, J. & Paccaud, F. (2005). Nonagenarians and centenarians in Switzerland, 1860-2001: Ademographic analysis, Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 59(1918), 31-37. DOI: 10.1136/jech.2003.018663
Salinari, G. & Ruiu, G. (2015, Sept.). Ageing in Sardinia. Paper presented at the European Society ofHistorical Demography conference. Alghero. Retrieved 5-12-2016 from: www.sis-aisp.it/ocs2.3.4/index.php/gsp2015/popdays2015/paper/downloadSuppFile/554/283.
Sebastiani, P., Nussbaum, L., Andersen, S. L., Black, M. J. & Perls, T. T. (2015). Increasing SiblingRelative Risk of Survival to Older and Older Ages and the Importance of Precise Definitionsof "Aging," "Life Span," and "Longevity." The Journals of Gerontology Series A: BiologicalSciences and Medical Sciences, 4, 1–7.DOI: 10.1093/gerona/glv020
Slagboom, P. E., Beekman, M., Passtoors, W. M., Deelen, J., Vaarhorst, a a M., Boer, J. M., …Westendorp, R. G. J. (2011). Genomics of human longevity. Philosophical Transactions of theRoyal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences, 366(1561), 35–42.DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2010.0284
Smith, K. R., Mineau, G. P. & Bean, L. L. (2002). Fertility and post-reproductive longevity. Biodemographyand Social Biology, 49(3-4), 185–205.DOI: 10.1080/19485565.2002.9989058
Smith, K. R., Mineau, G. P., Garibotti, G. & Kerber, R. (2009). Effects of childhood and middleadulthood family conditions on later-life mortality: evidence from the Utah Population Database,1850-2002. Social Science & Medicine, 68(9), 1649–1658.DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2009.02.010
Statistisches Bundesamt (2006). Generationensterbetafeln für Deutschland: Modellrechnungen für dieGeburtsjahrgänge 1871-2004. Retrieved 23-11-2016 from: www.destatis.de/DE/Publikationen/Thematisch/Bevoelkerung/Bevoelkerungsbewegung/Generationssterbetafeln5126101069004.pdf?__blob=publicationFile.
Temby, O. F. & Smith, K. R. (2014). The association between adult mortality risk and family history oflongevity: The moderating effects of socioeconomic status. Journal of Biosocial Science, 46(6),703–716.DOI: 10.1017/S0021932013000515
Terry, D. F., Sebastiani, P., Andersen, S. L. & Perls, T. T. (2008). Disentangling the roles of disability andmorbidity in survival to exceptional old age. Archives of Internal Medicine, 168(3), 277–283.DOI: 10.1001/archinternmed.2007.75
Terry, D. F., Wilcox, M. A., McCormick, M. A., Pennington, J. Y., Schoenhofen, E. A., Andersen, S. L. &Perls, T. T. (2004). Lower all-cause mortality, cardiovascular and cancer mortality in centenarians'offspring. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 52(12), 2074–2076.DOI: 10.1111/j.1532-5415.2004.52561.x
Tsuya, N. O., Nystedt, P., Manfredini, M., Neven, M. & Campbell, C. (2004). Old-age mortality. In T.Bengtsson, C. Campbell & J. Z. Lee (Eds.), Life under pressure: Mortality and living standards inEuropea and Asia, 1700-1900 (pp. 399–429). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Van Poppel, F.W.A. (1992). Religion and health: Catholicism and regional mortality differences innineteenth century Netherlands, Social History of Medicine, 5(2), 229-253.DOI: 10.1093/shm/5.2.229
Westendorp, R. G. J. & Kirkwood, T. B. L. (1998). Human longevity at the cost of reproductive success.Nature, 396(6713), 743–746.
WHO (2016). Life expectancy: Data by country. Retrieved 26-2-2016 from: apps.who.int/gho/data/node.main.688?lang=en
Wilmoth, J. R. (2000). Demography of longevity: Past, present, and future trends. ExperimentalGerontology, 35(9-10), 1111–1129.DOI: 10.1016/S0531-5565(00)00194-7
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
How to Cite
