A recent study shows that firstborn babies tend to live longer than their siblings, a finding that indicates that a lower birthrate will help improve life expectancy.
The research, the largest on the health and lifespan of Chinese senior citizens, was carried out by an aging study center and the Institute of Population Science of Beijing University on 25,000 centenarians and tens of thousands of octogenarians in China.
Of all the centenarians surveyed, some 69 percent are the eldest or second eldest of their family. Few are the youngest of a group of brothers and sisters.
Experts also found that a person's lifespan is closely related to his or her mother's age. Seventy-one percent of the octogenarians surveyed were born when their mothers were aged 20 to 29 years old.
Experts conclude that less births and better health conditions of mothers will help improve the lifespan and overall quality of future generations.
China, the most populous country on earth, upholds a policy of birth control and family planning. The birth rate and natural growth rate of its population has been cut in half and by about two-thirds respectively since 1970.
(Xinhua News Agency November 8, 2001)
