Full Citation

Title: Cohort and Age Effects

Citation Type: Book, Section

Publication Year: 2004

ISBN:

ISSN:

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-662-10349-4_6

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Abstract: The last chapters provide ample evidence that life span and month of birth are related. Two questions arise: first, does this influence also exist for the ages 1 to 49? Second, is the magnitude of the excess mortality of the spring-born similar in all age groups? There are at least two different hypotheses concerning these questions. A first hypothesis is that the excess mortality of the spring-born is age-specific because of the changing distribution of causes of death with age. The analysis of the US death certificates presented in Chapter 5 shows that the month-of-birth effect exists in all major groups of causes of death and that its magnitude differs, however. The excess mortality of the spring-born is largest for heart disease and considerably smaller for the group of malignant neoplasms. Thus, the month-of-birth pattern might be comparatively small at younger ages and increase its magnitude at middle and old ages when heart disease becomes an important cause of death. A second hypothesis is that the differences decrease with age due to mortality selection. Among both the spring- and the autumn-born, the frailer will die first, resulting into an ever more homogeneous and “robust” population at higher ages. In practice, it is most probably the case that both forces work simultaneously.

Url: http://www.springerlink.com/index/10.1007/978-3-662-10349-4_6

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Authors: Doblhammer, Gabriele

Editors:

Pages: 105-124

Volume Title: The Late Life Legacy of Very Early Life

Publisher: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

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Volume:

Edition:

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Aging and Retirement

Countries: United States