Does a woman’s reproductive history influence her life span? This study explores the question on the basis of data from two contemporary female populations: England & Wales and Austria. It is the first comparative study that investigates the relationship between fertility and mortality late in...

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Negative senescence is characterized by a decline in mortality with age after reproductive maturity, generally accompanied by an increase in fecundity. Hamilton (1966) ruled out negative senescence: we adumbrate the deficiencies of his model. We review empirical studies of various plants and...

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The evolution of different life history strategies and thus different ageing patterns essentially depends on the nature of the underlying trade-offs between survival and reproduction. To fully comprehend ageing, we need to understand these trade-offs.

Using data from Germany, we examine if month of birth influences survival up to age 105. Since age reporting at the highest ages is notoriously unreliable we draw on age-validated information from a huge age validation project of 1487 alleged German semi-supercentenarians aged 105+. We use month...

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We present an analysis of birth seasonality in nine geographical regions within Austria for two time periods, 1881-1912 and 1947-1959. In the early period, geography, climate, and agricultural patterns were related to birth seasonality. By the later time period, these factors were no longer...

How does a woman’s reproductive history influence her life span? We find that parity and both an early and late birth significantly influence longevity. The impact of a woman’s reproductive history on her life span is minor, however, compared to the influence of her level of education or...

We find significant differences in the mean age at death by month of birth on the basis of 15 million US death certificates for the years 1989 to 1997: Those born in fall live about 0.44 of a year longer than those born in spring. The difference depends on race, region of birth, marital status,...