Sibling Similarity in Old Age Mortality

Federica Querin, Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna
Nicola Barban, University of Bologna
Benedetta Scotti, Bocconi University

It is well established that childhood family conditions play an important role in shaping survival chances around birth and in adult life. Still, it is an open question whether the influence of family of origin on old age mortality patterns holds in population-wide settings, especially in low mortality contemporary countries. To the best of our knowledge, ours is the first study to explore similarity in sibling mortality among seniors at the population level in the United States, a low mortality but high inequality country. We combine data from multiple US administrative data sources, including the 1920 and 1940 census, and CenSoc DMF dataset, which includes death records from the Social Security Administration Death Master File. We compare sibling dyads and matched dyads who share parental and background characteristics following the methodology suggested in Raab et al. (2014) for life course trajectories. Findings suggest that siblings’ lifespans are more similar than that of matched-but-unrelated dyads, with persisting lifespan correlations at older ages. We find no evidence of socio-economic differentials in sibling correlations by father’s occupation, rural or urban setting, and county of residency in childhood.

Keywords: Mortality and Longevity, Census data, Linked data sets

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