PRB

The Population Association of America (PAA) held its annual meeting in Washington, DC this April. The conference offered researchers and practitioners a platform to discuss new work in 272 sessions and hundreds of poster presentations.

The conference included dynamic discussions about recent federal budget cuts and threats to public data. Many of our colleagues working at federal agencies were unable to attend the meeting this year because of travel and budget restrictions.

Taking advantage of the conference’s DC location this year, PAA also sponsored a large advocacy day with more than 100 scientists from 30 states participating in meetings with their congressional delegations. The meetings sought to boost congressional support for the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, U.S. Census Bureau, and other research and statistical agencies.

In this blog, PRB staff report on a sampling of sessions from the meeting. Most of the research studies are ongoing and not yet published, so the findings reported here are largely preliminary. Search PAA’s full conference program for information on all sessions.

With the Future of the Demographic Health Survey Uncertain, Many Actors Step Up to Explore Paths Forward

In the last week of February 2025, funding for the Demographic Health Survey (DHS)—a program that has existed with USAID support since 1984—was terminated as a result of the Trump administration’s executive order freezing foreign aid funding. Since then, foreign governments, researchers, and policymakers have sought to identify what steps might be needed for the future collection of demographic and health data through surveys. A panel of demographers and statisticians who led DHS collection and used its data reflected on existing needs and challenges and what that future could be.

Sunita Kishor, former director of the DHS programs at global consulting firm ICF, reflected on the importance of the technical assistance and tools provided to countries to implement the survey and how these could be lost. João Pedro Azevedo of UNICEF raised the important need to create more open access to existing DHS data, a point reinforced by Jennifer Park of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Diana Elliott shared that efforts are underway at PRB to bring stakeholders together for a neutral convening on sharing information and coordinating next steps. Will Dow of the University of California, Berkeley relayed that PAA is actively involved in conversations on Capitol Hill to share information about the DHS’s global importance.

The conversation focused on next steps and needs, including determining how to complete surveys that were in the field in multiple countries and nearly completed, how the data could be accessed and housed since the funding cuts, and whether future administration and survey design would be centralized as was done in the past or locally led by countries.

Well-Resourced School Environment in Childhood Slows Onset of Cognitive Decline Among Older Adults With Genetic Risk

About one in five Americans carry the apolipoprotein E (APOE) gene associated with increased risk for Alzheimer’s disease and cognitive decline. APOE carriers who grew up in states with high levels of education spending and resources show slower cognitive decline compared to their counterparts in states with lower levels of educational spending and resources, according to a new study.

Katrina Walsemann and Heide Jackson of the University of Maryland, Jason Boardman of the University of Colorado, and Pamela Herd of Georgetown University examined 2006 to 2018 Health and Retirement Study data linked to state-level data on the educational context.

Walsemann reported that living in states with higher-quality education systems slowed cognitive decline by nearly five years, which is five times longer than current FDA-approved Alzheimer’s drugs.  These findings suggest that childhood is a sensitive period when well-resourced educational settings can buffer genetic risk. She called investment in education a potentially powerful tool “in mitigating the effects of genetic risk of cognitive aging.”

Policies Designed to Delay Retirement and Promote Working Longer Can Be Effective

During the 1980s, the United States implemented Social Security reforms that incrementally increased the full retirement age from 65 to 67. This approach to extending working years offers a potential framework for other nations currently experiencing demographic shifts toward aging populations. Halim Yoon of Syracuse University focused on the 1980s reform’s impact on the unemployment of men born between 1928 and 1940 using the Current Population Survey. While unemployment rose modestly (particularly among those without a college degree), the reform did not lead to longer periods of unemployment.

Karen Eggleston of Stanford University and Hyeongsuk Kim and Chulhee Lee of Seoul National University reported that jobs today have become more age-friendly in the United States, with features such as low physical demands, flexible schedules, telecommuting, and autonomy. They showed that in South Korea, 88% of occupations became more age-friendly between 2000 and 2020. However, the pace of change was slower in South Korea than in the United States despite Korea’s workforce aging significantly more rapidly.

Sungsik Hwang of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Shiro Furuya of Harvard University, and Jenna Nobles of University of California, Berkeley showed that South Korea’s public sector bridge jobs, which enable older adults to work longer with less intensity than their previous positions, both delay retirement and improve health. They found that increased physical activity and better dietary patterns among workers in bridge jobs reduced the risk of obesity, diabetes, and high cholesterol levels.

Black Adult Children Less Likely Than Their White Peers to Have a Parent With Dementia

Because of higher mortality rates among Black older adults, white adult children are more likely to have a parent living with dementia than their Black counterparts, finds Haowei Wang of Syracuse University

But in midlife, Black adult children are more likely to have a parent with dementia than their white peers, reflecting earlier dementia onset among Black parents. Using nationally representative Health and Retirement Study data, Wang linked caregiving for an adult parent with dementia during midlife to greater likelihood of elevated depressive symptoms over time among Black adult children.

Half of U.S. older adults (ages 65 and older) living with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias are cared by their adult children, she noted. These findings “underscored critical racial disadvantages in light of the rising prevalence of dementia in U.S. aging families.”

Young Men Who Experience Family Instability at a Young Age May Face Poor Economic Well-Being in Adulthood

Family instability at a young age, illustrated by transitions in parental cohabiting relationship between birth to age 9, may not affect health and well-being as a young adult for all children, according to findings by Michelle Livings and colleagues from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study hosted by Princeton University. In fact, neither family instability nor single parenthood significantly affected young adult health by age 22. However, for young boys, family instability and living in a single parent household at a young age led to higher rates of poverty and lower educational achievement. Young women who had unstable parental presence at a young age did not experience these same outcomes.

These findings support the resource deprivation perspective for young men, which supports the idea that stable two-parent households are better resourced and lead their children to academic success whereas an unstable family lacks in these resources.

Coupled Americans Who Show Signs of Depression Are Less Likely to Want Children or Will Delay Fertility Plans

Many studies are exploring the reasons behind declining fertility rates in the United States. Karen Guzzo from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and colleagues examined the effects of physical and mental health on fertility goals. Coupled adults’ desire to have children, whether the first or another child, is weaker among those who report depressive symptoms. The timeline for adults with depressive symptoms who do want children is extended—the chance of these adults intending to have a child within the next year is low.

Self-reported physical health has little effect on a person’s openness to having a child. When their partner’s health is added to the equation, however, that willingness changes. When an individual self-reports high health but poorer health for their partner, they are more uncertain about wanting to have a child. When their partner’s health is rated higher, they are more likely to want another child.

Mothers and Fathers Both Experience Faster Biological Aging if They Have Three or More Children

Does having more children actually cause parents to age faster or does it just look that way because people who have more children differ in other ways (genetics, health, life situation)? Dalton Conley and Beza Taddess from Princeton University examined Health and Retirement Study data to answer this question. They measured biological age with DNA-based epigenetic clocks, a means of tracking cellular aging over time. To isolate the effect of having more children from other factors, they used a creative method based on whether a parent’s first two children were the same sex, which increased their likelihood of having a third child. Since the sex of the first two children is random and not related to parents’ biology or lifestyle, this approach helped isolate the effect of having more children from other factors that might also influence aging. It was a way to mimic a natural experiment and attempt to identify a cause-and-effect relationship.

Conley and Taddess found that parents with three or more children had signs of faster biological aging, both among mothers and fathers. Whether the children were boys or girls didn’t seem to matter. The findings suggest that the demands of parenting, beyond pregnancy itself, could have lasting effects on the aging process.