Patterns of individual variation in lifespan and senescence depend on the associations between parental survival and reproductive rates. We studied the associations between parity and survival among 579,271 Estonians born between 1905 and 1945 and in a cohort with a completed lifespan born in 1905−1927. For this cohort, selection for increased lifespan operated on both sexes, but it was stronger in men than in women. However, the median lifespan increased between the subsequent cohorts in women but stagnated in men. Selection for longer lifespan was caused by the below-average lifespan of individuals with no or single offspring. Despite a general positive selection for lifespan, survival costs of reproduction were also detected among a relatively small proportion of individuals with high parities, as mothers of two and fathers of two and three children had the highest median lifespans. Fathers of more than six children had better survival than fathers of few children in their reproductive age, but this association reversed after age 70. The reversal of this association between survival and parity at old age indicates that relative mortality risks between those with lower versus higher parities change across ages, as predicted by the antagonistic pleiotropy theory of aging.

中文翻译：

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生存成本和生殖收益：20 世纪爱沙尼亚的一项基于登记的研究


寿命和衰老的个体差异模式取决于父母存活率和繁殖率之间的关联。我们研究了出生于 1905 年至 1945 年的 579,271 名爱沙尼亚人以及出生于 1905−1927 年的完整寿命队列中的胎次与生存之间的关系。对于这个队列，延长寿命的选择对两性都有效，但男性的选择比女性更强。然而，随后的女性队列中的中位寿命有所增加，但男性中的中位寿命则停滞不前。选择更长的寿命是由于没有后代或只有一个后代的个体的寿命低于平均水平造成的。尽管寿命普遍存在积极选择，但在相对较小比例的高胎次个体中也发现了生殖的生存成本，因为两个孩子的母亲以及两个和三个孩子的父亲的中位寿命最高。在育龄期，拥有 6 个以上孩子的父亲比拥有很少孩子的父亲拥有更好的生存率，但这种关联在 70 岁之后发生了逆转。老年生存率与胎次之间的这种关联的逆转表明，低生育率人群与高生育率人群之间的相对死亡风险正如衰老拮抗多效性理论所预测的那样，胎次随着年龄的增长而变化。