Research Group
Reproductive Ageing
At a Glance
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Detailed Description
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With the widespread trend of childbearing at later ages comes the correspondingly increasing significance of reproductive aging, i.e., the age-related decline in reproductive function within individuals. Due to its mostly negative consequences for fertility and health, reproductive aging has been integral to the concerns raised about fertility postponement and longer post-reproductive lifespans. For instance, the deterioration of gamete quality during reproductive aging underpins the decline in fecundity (the biological ability to reproduce) and the parental age effect on adverse health outcomes in offspring.
However, before the goal of delaying reproductive aging and curtailing its negative health impacts can be realized, a prevailing assumption must first be overcome: namely that reproductive aging unfolds at a similar pace across individuals and is confined to females. Stemming from a model of finite and nonrenewable oocytes in female mammals that is now being challenged by new evidence from biomedicine, this assumption is not aligned with the considerable heterogeneity in the pace of reproductive aging beyond that related to genetic differences. Furthermore, this assumption masks the clear presence and significance of male reproductive aging in the context of human evolution and contemporary societies. It is therefore clear that we have much to learn about how reproductive aging unfolds in diverse sociodemographic contexts.
To contribute to the novel evidence necessary to refine such assumptions, the Research Group Reproductive Aging will pursue several underexamined questions in demography, including:
- How does the heterogeneity in human reproductive aging arise across the life course?
- What are the consequences of reproductive aging beyond the immediate outcomes in terms of individual health and fecundity?
- How does male reproductive aging shape fertility and children's outcomes over both the short and the long term?
We will harness theory, data, and methods from the biological and social sciences, in which exciting advances in reproduction, aging, and health research have recently been made, but are so far largely disjointed. We will draw on theoretical frameworks useful for linking health, life course events, and reproduction, such as the social determinants of health, the developmental origins of health and disease, the life course theory, and the life history theory.
This interdisciplinary approach will be accompanied by a comparative approach drawing on data from different populations and species. We will use longitudinal survey data in which repeated observations of health status and life events can be linked to the markers of reproductive aging. We will develop new methods to identify reproductive aging in prescription and diagnosis data, which can then be linked to other rich information available within register data. Particular efforts will be made to use data from the Global South, where reproductive aging has received little attention even though its importance is expected to grow in the future. Whenever possible, we will take an active role in new data collection efforts in both the Global North and the Global South in order to contribute more data on reproductive aging for use in the future.
Our overarching priority will be to highlight the population-level impact and demographic implications of reproductive aging. In doing so, the Group's works will contribute to a better understanding of the biosocial mechanisms and demographic significance of reproductive aging.