Victoria G. Semyonova

The response of violent mortality to economic crisis in Russia.

From 1992 to 1994 life expectancy for Russian males dropped from 62.0 to 57.6 years. Female life expectancy dropped from 73.8 years to 71.2 years. This drop in life expectancy coincided in time with the introduction of painful economic reforms in Russia, leading to a rapid decrease in real wages and pensions, nearly complete loss of personal savings, and a tremendous increase in the poverty rate. This article examines the temporary changes in mortality for violent causes of death during the crisis period with a special emphasis on age-specific and gender-specific differences in the response to economic crisis.

Does exceptional human longevity come with a high cost of infertility?: Testing the evolutionary theories of aging

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to test the prediction of the evolutionary theory of aging that human longevity comes with the cost of impaired reproductive success (higher infertility rates). Our validation study is based on the analysis of particularly reliable genealogical records for European aristocratic families using a logistic regression model with childlessness as a dependent (outcome) variable, and womans life span, year of birth, age at marriage, husbands age at marriage, and husbands life span as independent (predictor) variables. We found that the womans exceptional longevity did not increase her chances of being infertile. It appears that the previous reports by other authors of high infertility among long‐lived women (up to 50% infertility) are related to incomplete data, that is, births of children not reported. Thus, the concept of the high cost of infertility for human longevity is not supported by the data when these data are carefully cross‐checked, cleaned, and reanalyzed.