Demographers in the United States as in the Soviet Union have explored the possibility that a positive association exists between the fertility of women and their longevity. Most Soviet researchers are convinced there is empirical evidence to support the hypothesis but their counterparts in the United States are less sanguine. The interrelationship between sex, fertility, good health and long life have intrigued philosophers, statisticians, physiologists and gerontologists and they have spawned a great variety of explanations.
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