When do parents bury a child? Quantifying uncertainty in the parental age at offspring loss
Year: 2022
Type: report
Abstract: Mortality decline in the context of the demographic transition is often portrayed as the harbinger of a progressively 'ordered' world in which deaths become more predictable.In this narrative, parents adjust their fertility because they are increasingly certain that their offspring will survive childhood.Here, we use formal demographic methods to evaluate whether the parental age at offspring loss does, indeed, become more predictable as a result of longer lifespans and lower fertility.Our study of 18 selected countries for the 1850-2000 birth cohorts finds that, while offspring loss will become increasingly uncommon and be experienced at older parental ages, there is * Corresponding author: alburezgutierrez[at]demogr.mpg.de† These authors contributed equally to this work.1 no evidence of reduced variability in the age at offspring loss.These results advance fundamental population theory and have policy implications in terms of supporting bereaved parents over different stages of the life course.
Language: English
Subfield: Demography
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
OpenAlex ID: W4281708689