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Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Doberanerstrasse
114, 18057 Rostock, Germany
Edited by Kenneth W. Wachter, University of California, Berkeley,
CA, and approved November 16, 2000 (received for review September 8, 2000)
Month of birth influences adult life expectancy at ages 50+. Why?
In two countries of the Northern Hemisphere-Austria and Denmark-people born in autumn (October-December) live longer than those born in spring (April-June). Data for Australia show that, in
the Southern Hemisphere, the pattern is shifted by half a year. The
lifespan pattern of British immigrants to Australia is similar to that
of Austrians and Danes and significantly different from that of
Australians. These findings are based on population data with more than
a million observations and little or no selectivity. The differences in
lifespan are independent of the seasonal distribution of deaths and the
social differences in the seasonal distribution of births. In the
Northern Hemisphere, the excess mortality in the first year of life of
infants born in spring does not support the explanation of selective
infant survival. Instead, remaining life expectancy at age 50 appears
to depend on factors that arise in utero or early in
infancy and that increase susceptibility to diseases later in life.
This result is consistent with the finding that, at the turn of the
last century, infants born in autumn had higher birth weights than
those born in other seasons. Furthermore, differences in adult lifespan
by month of birth decrease over time and are significantly smaller in
more recent cohorts, which benefited from substantial improvements in
maternal and infant health.
Social Sciences
Lifespan depends on month of birth
*
To whom reprint requests should be addressed. E-mail:
doblhammer{at}demogr.mpg.de.
www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.041431898
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