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14. Grandmother presence improved grandchild survival against childhood infections but not vaccination coverage in historical Finns.

Author

Ukonaho, Susanna, Chapman, Simon N., Briga, Michael, and Lummaa, Virpi

Subjects
*VACCINATION coverage, *GRANDMOTHERS, *GRANDCHILDREN, *VACCINATION status, *LUNG infections
Abstract

Grandmother presence can improve the number and survival of their grandchildren, but what grandmothers protect against and how they achieve it remains poorly known. Before modern medical care, infections were leading causes of childhood mortality, alleviated from the nineteenth century onwards by vaccinations, among other things. Here, we combine two individual-based datasets on the genealogy, cause-specific mortality and vaccination status of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Finns to investigate two questions. First, we tested whether there were cause-specific benefits of grandmother presence on grandchild survival from highly lethal infections (smallpox, measles, pulmonary and diarrhoeal infections) and/or accidents. We show that grandmothers decreased all-cause mortality, an effect which was mediated through smallpox, pulmonary and diarrhoeal infections, but not via measles or accidents. Second, since grandmothers have been suggested to increase vaccination coverage, we tested whether the grandmother effect on smallpox survival was mediated through increased or earlier vaccination, but we found no evidence for such effects. Our findings that the beneficial effects of grandmothers are in part driven by increased survival from some (but not all) childhood infections, and are not mediated via vaccination, have implications for public health, societal development and human life-history evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Published
2023
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17. Grandmotherhood across the demographic transition

Author

Chapman, Simon N., Pettay, Jenni E., Lahdenperä, Mirkka, and Lummaa, Virpi

Subjects
Death Rates, Economics, Population Dynamics, lcsh:Medicine, Social Sciences, Research and Analysis Methods, Pediatrics, Geographical locations, Cohort Studies, Health Economics, Population Metrics, Sociology, Medicine and Health Sciences, Humans, Public and Occupational Health, European Union, lcsh:Science, Fertility Rates, Child, Finland, Aged, Evolutionary Biology, Population Biology, lcsh:R, Child Health, Age Factors, Biology and Life Sciences, Europe, Health Care, Grandparents, Research Design, Social Systems, lcsh:Q, Female, Family Relations, People and places, Research Article
Abstract

Grandmothers provide key care to their grandchildren in both contemporary and historic human populations. The length of the grandmother-grandchild relationship provides a basis for such interactions, but its variation and determinants have rarely been studied in different contexts, despite changes in age-specific mortality and fertility rates likely having affected grandmotherhood patterns across the demographic transition. Understanding how often and long grandmothers have been available for their grandchildren in different conditions may help explain the large differences between grandmaternal effects found in different societies, and is vital for developing theories concerning the evolution of menopause, post-reproductive longevity, and family living. Using an extensive genealogical dataset from Finland spanning the demographic transition, we quantify the length of grandmotherhood and its determinants from 1790-1959. We found that shared time between grandmothers and grandchildren was consistently low before the demographic transition, only increasing greatly during the 20th century. Whilst reduced childhood mortality and increasing adult longevity had a role in this change, grandmaternal age at birth remained consistent across the study period. Our findings further understanding of the temporal context of grandmother-grandchild relationships, and emphasise the need to consider the demography of grandmotherhood in a number of disciplines, including biology (e.g. evolution of the family), sociology (e.g. changing family structures), population health (e.g. changing age structures), and economics (e.g. workforce retention).

Published
2018

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