Becoming a father before 25 increases risk of mid-life death

Becoming a father before your 25th birthday could be hazardous to your health, according to a new paper published online in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health which found a link between having a child at an early age and increased likelihood of mid-life death.

In the study, Dr. Elina Einiö of the Population Research Unit (PRU) at the University of Helsinki Department of Social Research and her colleagues indicate that males who father a child in early life have poorer health overall and die earlier than men who put off having a child.

They found that men who were already dads by the time they turned 22 had a 26 percent higher risk of death in midlife than those who had fathered their first child at the age of 25 or 26. Men who became first-time fathers had a 14 percent higher risk of dying during middle age.

“We do not know the mechanisms behind this association based on our study,” Dr. Einiö told redOrbit via email. “However, we know based on other studies that many pregnancies were unplanned and young parents often decided to form a new household at that time. It is possible that suddenly taking on the combined role of father and breadwinner may cause considerable psychological and economic stress for a young man not ready for his new role.”

Breaking down the findings

In a nationally representative sample of households involving data taken from the 1950 Finnish Census, Dr. Einiö’s team looked at more than 30,500 men born between 1940 and 1950 who had become fathers by the age of 45. Those fathers were tracked from the age of 45 until death or up to age 52 using mortality data ranging from 1985 through 2005, they explained.

Fifteen percent of those individuals fathered their first child by age 22, while 29 percent did so between the ages of 22 and 24; 18 percent did so when they were 25 or 26; 19 percent between the ages of 27 and 29; and another 19 percent between the ages of 30 and 44. The average age of first-time fatherhood was 25-26, and men in this age bracket served as a point of reference.

Approximately one in 20 fathers died during the 10-year monitoring period, with ischaemic heart disease and diseases associated with excess alcohol use (21 percent and 16 percent, respectively) as the primary causes of death. As mentioned above, fathers who were younger than 25-26 when they had their first child were found to have a higher mortality risk than older first-time dads.

The study also found that men who became dads between the ages of 30 and 44 had a 25 percent lower risk of death in middle age than those who fathered their first child at 25 or 26, while those fathering their first child between the ages of 27 and 29 had the same risk of death as those in the 25- to 26-year-old reference group, the researchers explained in a statement.

“The findings of our study suggest that the association between young fatherhood and mid life mortality is likely to be causal,” the study authors wrote. “The association was not explained by unobserved early life characteristics shared by brothers or by certain adult characteristics known to be associated both with fertility timing and mortality.”

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