ArticlePloS one2015
The Trade-Off between Female Fertility and Longevity during the Epidemiological Transition in the Netherlands.
Article in PloS one, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Are pregnancy and parity associated with telomere length? A systematic review.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2023Pooled it
- Genetic trade-offs in fertility and longevity explain the maintenance of disease-associated alleles in humans.Nature ecology & evolution · 2026Article
- Mothers facing greater environmental adversity experience increased costs of reproduction.Science advances · 2025Article
- Parity and post-reproductive mortality among U.S. Black and White women: Evidence from the health and retirement study.PloS one · 2024Article
- Impact of fertility on the longevity of older rural Chinese women: an analysis of a longitudinal survey.BMC public health · 2022Article
- Long-term association of pregnancy and maternal brain structure: the Rotterdam Study.European journal of epidemiology · 2022Article
- Examining the trade-offs between human fertility and longevity over three centuries using crowdsourced genealogy data.PloS one · 2021Article
- Female Fertility Has a Negative Relationship With Longevity in Chinese Oldest-Old Population: A Cross-Sectional Study.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2020Article
- Reconstruction of Birth Histories for the Study of Fertility in the United States, 1830-1910.Historical methods · 2020Article
- The 4 D's of Pellagra and Progress.International journal of tryptophan research : IJTR · 2020Review
- The parental co-immunization hypothesis: An observational competing risks analysis.Scientific reports · 2019Article
- Nicotinamide and Demographic and Disease transitions: Moderation is Best.International journal of tryptophan research : IJTR · 2019Review
- Mitotype Interacts With Diet to Influence Longevity, Fitness, and Mitochondrial Functions in Adult FemaleFrontiers in genetics · 2018Article
- Selection bias in studies of human reproduction-longevity trade-offs.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2017Article
- Familial Longevity Is Not Associated with Major Differences in the Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Gonadal Axis in Healthy Middle-Aged Men.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2016Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Several hypotheses have been put forward to explain the relationship between women's fertility and their post-reproductive longevity. In this study, we focus on the disposable soma theory, which posits that a negative relationship between women's fertility and longevity can be understood as an evolutionary trade-off between reproduction and survival. We examine the relationship between fertility and longevity during the epidemiological transition in the Netherlands. This period of rapid decline in mortality from infectious diseases offers a good opportunity to study the relationship between fertility and longevity, using registry data from 6,359 women born in The Netherlands between 1850 and 1910. We hypothesize that an initially negative relationship between women's fertility and their longevity gradually turns less negative during the epidemiological transition, because of decreasing costs of higher parities. An initially inversed U-shaped association between fertility and longevity changes to zero during the epidemiological transition. This does suggest a diminishing environmental pressure on fertility. However, we find no evidence of an initial linear trade-off between fertility and post-reproductive survival.
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