Family factors

Building colleges, building longer lives

This study shows that expanding access to four-year colleges not only increases educational attainment but also extends life expectancy.
Early-life disease burden and later-life mortality

This study finds that being born during periods with high infant mortality, reflecting poor disease environments and limited healthcare access, is linked to higher mortality rates later in life, particularly after age 70.
How a father’s schooling shapes his children’s lifespan

This study provides strong evidence that a father’s level of education has a measurable impact on his children’s longevity.
How early school laws boost lifespans across generations

This study finds that the first wave of compulsory schooling laws in the late 19th century not only increased parents’ education but also led to longer lives for their children decades later.
Legal abortion and lifelong health

This study examines the long-term health benefits of early-life exposure to legal abortion.
Safer births, stronger lives

This study finds that early exposure to state midwifery licensing laws in the early 1900s improved health later in life
The cost of racial violence

This study reveals the lasting toll of racial violence on Black Americans’ longevity. Researchers find that Black babies whose mothers were pregnant during a local lynching lived about 3.7 months less as adults, on average.
The early bird gets the worm

This study explores how birth order affects longevity, finding that later-born siblings live 1–3 months less than their earlier-born counterparts.
The motherhood tradeoff: fertility and later-life mortality

This study explores how having more children affects parents’ longevity, with implications for family planning and social policy. Using 1940 U.S.
The pest that helped kids live longer

This study explores how a devastating pest, the boll weevil, accidentally improved long-term health for children growing up in the early 1900s Cotton Belt.
The proof of life: how birth registration boosts longevity

This study is the first to link childhood exposure to birth registration laws with longer life in old age, estimating an intent-to-treat effect of 0.08 years (about 1 month) increase in lifespan.
Trade shocks and rising deaths

This study examines the long-term health impacts of NAFTA-driven economic shocks on American communities.
What racial identity meant for a longer life

This study investigates how changing one’s racial classification, specifically, passing as white, affected old-age longevity for African Americans in the pre-Civil Rights era.