Khandwala YS, et al. – A retrospective data investigation is done to explore the mean paternal age in the USA changed over the past 4 decades. According to the obtained outcomes, the age at which men are fathering children in the USA has been increasing over time, although it varies by race, geographic region and paternal education level.

Methods

• For this study, they conducted a retrospective data analysis.
• This is the study of paternal age and reporting patterns for 168867480 live births within the USA since 1972.
• In this study, all live births within the USA collected through the National Vital Statistics System (NVSS) of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were assessed.
• Inverse probability weighting (IPW) was utilized to decrease bias because of missing paternal records.

Results

• They found mean paternal age has increased over the past 44 years from 27.4 to 30.9 years.
• College education and Northeastern birth states were related to higher paternal age.
• Racial/ethnic differences were also identified, whereby Asian fathers were the oldest and Black fathers were the youngest.
• The parental age difference (paternal age minus maternal age) has reduced over the past 44 years.
• Births to Black and Native American mothers were most often lacking paternal data, implying low paternal reporting.
• Paternal reporting was higher for older and more educated women.