Having many children would not be without health consequences

To say that children can harm the health of their parents is undoubtedly a bit blunt, but the number of dependent children could on the other hand play a role on well-being, as well as on the risk of developing certain diseases. This is according to a study carried out by researchers from several universities and schools around the world, including the University of Rhode Island, in the United States, and the University of Padua, in Italy, among adults aged 50 and over, in twenty-four middle- and high-income countries in North America, Latin America, Asia and Europe. The objective? Evaluate a potential link between the number of children and several health indicators among older generations.

Mental health impacted

“Our main motivation for this study is the aging population globally. Many studies examine the link between children and some aspect of health or life expectancy. Although various aspects of health have been studied, there are few studies that question this relationship between different nations and we are not aware of any that compare several dimensions of health between several countries“, explains Dr. Nekehia Quashie, professor at the University of Rhode Island, in a press release.

To carry out their work, the researchers analyzed cross-sectional data from 166,739 adults aged 50 and over, over a period from 1992 to 2017 in 24 countries. Five health indicators, including self-rated health, depression, and chronic illness, were plotted against participants’ number of children. Published in The Journals of Gerontology – Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, this work suggests a potential association between the number of children and the impact on health, but this is far from universal. “What we found is that in the majority of countries we analyzed, having more children is associated with poorer health outcomes later in life, particularly for chronic illness and depression“, explains Dr Nekehia Quashie.

Perception VS reality

At the end of their analysis, the scientists observed an increased risk of depression among participants who had the most children in half of all the countries studied. The finding was the same for the risk of chronic diseases, but this time in eleven of the twenty-four countries included in this work. Another lesson and not the least, the trend has reversed for one of the indicators: self-assessed health. Participants aged 50 and over with the fewest children were more likely to report poor health in six countries: China, Estonia, France, Israel, the Netherlands, and Switzerland . “Variation in national contexts may reflect differences in the cultural value placed on children, the existence of more limited formal infrastructure to support older adults, or other local conditions“, we can read in the study.

The researchers also found disparities between countries. For the United States, for example, they did not observe a significant link between fertility and the health of people aged 50 and over. Conversely, participants with many children – namely four or more children – were more likely to see their health impacted, for at least three indicators, in Greece, Mexico, Italy, Spain, Portugal and in the Czech Republic. However, this work has not highlighted the cause of this association, although scientists mention the potential influence of economic, social, emotional and biological burdens.

“Children can be great and having a large number of children can increase the potential supply of support when needed as one ages – and this can be common across countries. But children also present constraints throughout life“, underlines the main author of the study. These initial conclusions should give rise to new, more in-depth research to determine the mechanisms at the origin of this association, and in a more universal manner.

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