Can Having More Children Reduce Cognitive Functioning?

So, (to put it bluntly) can having more children make you stupider in your old age?

It seems so, but first let’s understand the limitations and why this could be the case.

First, this study, out of Columbia, analysed data from the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) to look at the extent to which having three or more children, versus two children, affects late-life cognition. SHARE collects representative data from 20 European countries and in this case they were over 65 and had at least two biological children.

So, what did they find – well, yes, as I said they found that having three or more children, compared to two, reduced cognitive ability in later life – this was equivalent to 6.2 years of aging. That is a pretty large effect. Of note is that they crunched the numbers to indicate causation rather than correlation.

This effect was worst in northern European countries likely because in these countries having more children does not confer any additional resources or benefits.

What do they consider the reason for this:

1. 1. Having additional children incurs significant costs which can lead to a decreased quality of life or dropping below the poverty line.
   2. Having additional children lowers women’s labour market participation. This further lowers income but also working confers cognitive benefits.
   3. Having children is stressful and can have longer impacts on health and mental health

Of note is that it seems that there is no additional social benefit from having three or more children over two – social contact does not increase. These effects were much larger in the North of Europe than the South for multiple reasons such as cost of living and social structures.

The study didn’t explore other variations such as comparison to having only one child or none – they recommend this for future studies. It is also important to have this knowledge with people living ever longer and late life health and cognitive functioning becoming ever more important.

So, all in two children is enough – and that is exactly what I have. Phew!