Children of older fathers don’t perform any worse in school than those with fathers in their 30s, according to a new study published in the online science journal PLoS ONE.
Men’s average age at the birth of their first child has risen sharply over the past few decades, a trend that is particularly pronounced in the Stockholm region where the study was conducted by the Karolinska Institutet.
Several earlier studies revealed a correlation between the father’s age and the risk of his child developing uncommon neuropsychiatric diseases, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
Recent studies have also suggested that high paternal age can have a negative impact on his child’s cognitive abilities. So researchers reviewed data of more than 135,000 children’s final year-nine grades between 2000 and 2007 to see if there was a similar correlation between high paternal age.
"To the delight of fathers choosing to wait before having children, our results suggest that children of older fathers perform no worse in school," said lead author Anna Svensson. "When we studied children’s final year-nine grades we could see no difference between children of fathers in their 50s and children of fathers in their 30s."
Children of even younger fathers performed slightly worse in school, although these difference could be attributed to the parents’ own educational background.
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