Abstract
Mounting evidence suggests that early-life conditions have an enduring effect on an individual’s mortality risks as an adult. The contribution of improvements in early-life conditions to the overall decline in adult mortality, however, remains a debated issue. We provide an estimate of the contribution of improvements in early-life conditions to mortality decline after age 30 in Dutch cohorts born between 1812 and 1921. We used two proxies for early-life conditions: median height and early-childhood mortality. We estimate that improvements in early-life conditions contributed more than five years or about a third to the rise in women’s life expectancy at age 30. Improvements in early-life conditions contributed almost three years or more than a quarter to the rise in men’s life expectancy at age 30. Height appears to be the more important of the two proxies for early-life conditions.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 327-343 |
| Journal | Population Studies: a journal of demography |
| Volume | 70 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| Early online date | 13 Sept 2016 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2016 |
Keywords
- adult mortality
- early-life conditions
- height
- infant mortality
- early-childhood mortality
- SSCI