Children and late-life cognitive health: The role of motherhood penalties

Martin Fischer, Therese Nilsson, Dominika Seblova and Martin Lövdén

No 1153, Ruhr Economic Papers from RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen

Abstract: This study examines the relationship between the number of children and dementia risk among parents, addressing longstanding questions about how parenthood shapes cognitive health in later life. Using comprehensive administrative data on all parents born in Sweden between 1920 and 1950, along with their completed fertility histories, our baseline analysis reveals a U-shaped association between the number of children and dementia risk. Childless individuals and those with more than three children face significantly higher dementia risks. However, when accounting for confounding factors through instrumental variable analysis and within-sibling comparisons, we find no evidence that having multiple children increases dementia risk. Instead, our esults suggest that parenthood generally lowers the risk of dementia across all parity levels, challenging recent studies reporting a negative relationship between higher parity and cognitive function. Furthermore, we find that fathers benefit more than mothers from having additional children in terms of cognitive health in old age. Complementary analyses focusing on known dementia risk factors including educational attainment, labor market outcomes, and social or geographical proximity to children suggest that motherhood-related penalties may attenuate the cognitive health benefits of parenthood for women.

Keywords: Old-age dementia; instrumental variables; administrative register data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J13 J14 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-lab and nep-neu
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:rwirep:323235

DOI: 10.4419/96973337

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