The Past as Prologue: The Effect of Early Life Circumstances at the Community and Household Levels on Mid-Life and Late-Life Outcomes (original) (raw)

The impact of circumstances early in life on later life outcomes in the U.S. can now be explored using data linking individuals from Social Security records back to the manuscript schedules of federal population censuses shortly after their birth. This allows us to assess the effect of individual, household, and community level influences on longevity. We find that these all had substantial affects on age at death, as did characteristics measured at enlistment into the U.S. Army in World War Two.