Familial Transmission of Human Longevity among the Oldest-Old in China

Danzhen You, University of California, Berkeley

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between exceptional longevity (survival to 100 years old and beyond) of offspring and longevity of parents, by using data from the first three waves of the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey. Fixed-Attributes Dynamics methods and logistic models are applied to the data. Results of both methods show a relatively strong same-sex inheritance of longevity between parents and offspring, that is, a strong association of longevity between fathers and sons or between mothers and daughters, but weak or no association of longevity between fathers and daughters or between mothers and sons. Having both mother and father long-lived also contributes to children’s exceptional longevity.