Pathways to Exceptional Longevity: Effects of early-life and intermediate factors on later-life mortality

A substantial body of literature has focused on early familial life as a source of longevity differential in very old age. The channels through which early life environment is hypothesized to influence mortality in later life are diverse and could be direct or indirect. In this paper we discuss early-life factors which could affect an individual’s chance to reach the advanced ages, with a particular focus on siblings of centenarians. Using an event-history database that links age at death of individuals to their childhood characteristics gathered from the 1901 and 1911 Canadian census records and to their adult characteristics, we address two questions: Are early-life conditions associated with longevity among the oldest old; and Do adult SES and mariage mediate the effect of early-life environment on later life survival? Non-parametric analysis are performed to estimate the effect of each early-life and adult variables using the Kaplan-Meier estimator as well as gender-specific proportional hazard models with a Gompertz specification of the risk of mortality. The results of this study will shed light on the extent to which the effect of early life conditions on mortality later in life is mediated by the attained socioeconomic position in adulthood or marital status.