Health Shocks of the Father and Longevity of the Children's Children

I document the transmission of a grandfather’s net nutritional deprivation in young adulthood across multiple generations using the grandfather’s ex-POW status in the US Civil War (1861-5). I uncover an association between a grandfather’s ex-POW status and the longevity after age 45 of his sons and male-line grandsons but not of his daughters, granddaughters, female-line grandsons, children-in-law, or grandchildren-in-law. Male-line grandsons lost roughly a year of life at age 45, or 4% of remaining life expectancy, if descended from ex-POWs who suffered severe captivity conditions than if descended from non-POWs. I find that the grandfather’s age at exposure, own education and own and father’s poor late gestatational conditions, as proxied by season of birth, mediate this relationship. I rule out socioeconomic status, marriage and mortality selection, and cultural or psychological transmission from grandfather to grandson as explanations. I cannot rule out an epigenetic explanation.