by Sarah Lane

A new study at the University of Queensland exposed as a myth the idea that men, unlike women, have all the time in the world to reproduce. Researchers analyzed data gathered about more than 33,000 American children and found a correlation between advanced father age and slightly lower IQ in the children. The older a man was at conception, the lower his offpsring’s score on tests of memory, reasoning, reading skills, and concentration through the age of seven. The difference was small: only several points between the children of a 20-year-old father and those of a 50-year-old father.

But although the difference was slight, the study contributes to an ever-growing pool of research that finds a link between paternal age and optimal child development. Consider  a 2006 study of more than 130,000 people that found a correlation between advanced paternal age and increased risk for autism. Children with fathers who were 50 at conception had a 52 in 10,000 chance of being autistic, whereas children whose fathers were between 15 and 29 had only a 6 in 10,000 chance. Other research has found links between paternal age and the risk of developing bipolar disorder or schizophrenia.

In the April 5 issue of The New York Times Magazine, Lisa Belkin addresses the implications of the Queensland study and similar research. She examines societal biases that, it would now seem, unfairly target the age of women at conception and by implication blame older women for developmental disorders present at birth in their children, all the while ignoring the reproductive viability of men. And she envisions a very different future for the two genders in relation to one another as a result of this and further research.

©2009 ProgressiveKid

Image by Jon Rawlinson, 2008, Creative Commons license.

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