Do the Parents and Siblings of the Longevous Chinese Also Live Longer? Familial Factors on Mortality

Danzhen You, University of California, Berkeley

The paper uses the data from "Determinants of Health Longevity in China (1998)" survey to explore the mortality and life expectancy of the parents and siblings of 8803 longevous respondents who were 80 years old and over in 1998. The parents were born in about 1840 to 1900 and siblings born in about 1870 to 1940. Life tables for these two cohorts are constructed, and Cox regression is used to explore the familial factors on mortality. The results show the parents and siblings of these longevous respondents also live longer. A positive correlation between the mortality risk of the respondents' parents and that of the siblings, and an across-sex inheriting relationship, are found. Birth order has different effects on the male siblings' mortality and on the female siblings'. No significant differential of mortality between different-ordered male births except the very-high births. However, the females' mortality increased over the birth order.