WTF Fun Fact 12797 – Fathers With Daughters Tend to Live Longer

You may find it interesting to know that a few different studies conducted around the world have found that parents tend to have a longer life expectancy than non-parents. If you’re currently raising a small child, that may seem unlikely, but the statistics are in your favor! And if you’re a father with daughters, you’re double lucky.

Studying parental longevity

None of these studies can prove causation. That is, there is no way to prove that daughters directly cause their fathers to have longer lives. These are studies of correlation. And we all know that phrase correlation is not causation. So if you have ten sons or no children at all, have no fear.

Ok, so what do the studies say? Here’s a taste:

One of the most oft-cited studies is this one, which looked at rural families in Poland. The researchers stated that despite reproduction being such a physical and energic drain on people, dads with daughters tended to live longer (but moms don’t).

Fathers with daughters tend to live longer

They say:

“We show for the first time that number of daughters was positively related to a longer life span of their fathers, increasing their longevity on average by 74 weeks per daughter born, while number of sons did not have a significant effect on paternal longevity.”

In a separate study, the researchers posit that “Having a daughter has been shown to be associated with increased chances of regular social contact and with receiving help if needed, something that we hypothesize becomes more important later in life.”

Not all studies agree

However, the same researchers also point out that not all studies have found a correlation between child genre and parental longevity:

“The role of daughters versus sons for parental mortality has been the topic of a few previous studies, but the results are inconsistent. Some studies found no association with the gender of the child while other found that daughters are more favourable, sometimes for fathers only. In a study on Swedish data, the protective effect of having a daughter was detected only among one-child parents, but not for parents with several children, which is in line with a Norwegian study.”

In the end, it appears that longevity may have a lot to do with social ties and having a community around you, which parents are more likely to have in order to socialize their children. One of the reasons fathers with daughters may live longer is that “older childless individuals, particularly men, appear to have less social interactions than older parents and there is evidence that having a daughter is associated with increased chances of regular social contacts and with receiving help if needed.”

However, this same study “found some support for the difference between mothers and fathers, but no support for the hypothesis regarding a beneficial effect of a daughter.”

So the jury’s still out! – WTF fun facts

Source: “Daughters increase longevity of fathers, but daughters and sons equally reduce longevity of mothers” — American Journal of Human Biology


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