Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-22dnz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-27T03:19:51.327Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Inequality and Childhood Mortality: a Comparison of England and Wales, 1911, and the United States, 1900

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Abstract

An index of childhood mortality is proposed as a good measure of socioeconomic well-being and inequality. The index is used to investigate the relationship between childhood mortality and occupation and income of parents. The sources consist of the 1900 United States Census public-use sample and the published 1911 Census of Marriage and Fertility of England and Wales. Results revealed more inequality in mortality and income across social-class groupings in England and Wales than in the United States. The outcome arose more because of relatively higher childhood mortality for white-collar groups in the United States than because of a better situation for blue-collar groups.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1985

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See, for example, Brown, E. H. Phelps, The Inequality of Pay (Berkeley, 1977), chap. 1;Google ScholarWilliamson, Jeffrey G. and Lindert, Peter H., American Inequality: A Macroeconomic History (New York, 1980);Google ScholarLebergott, Stanley, The American Economy: Income, Wealth and Want (Princeton, 1976);Google ScholarWilliamson, Jeffrey G., “The Structure of Pay in Britain, 1710–1911,” Research in Economic History, 7 (1982), pp. 154; Peter Lindert, “Who Owned Victorian England?” (Agricultural History Center, University of California-Davis, Working Paper Series, No. 2, Feb. 1983).Google Scholar

2 Taylor, A. J., ed., The Standard of Living in Britain in the Industrial Revolution (London, 1975), pp. xvii–xviii, xxix–xxxvii.Google Scholar

3 Williamson, Jeffrey, “Was the Industrial Revolution Worth It? Disamenities and Death in Nineteenth Century British Towns,” Explorations in Economic History, 19 (1982), pp. 221–45;CrossRefGoogle ScholarFogel, Robert W., Engerman, Stanley L., and Trussell, James, “Exploring the Use of Data on Height: The Analysis of Long-Term Trends in Nutrition, Labor Welfare, and Labor Productivity,” Social Science History, 6 (Fall 1982), pp. 401–21;CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMedHollingsworth, J. Rogers, “Inequality in Levels of Health in England and Wales, 1891–1971,” Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 22 (09 1981), pp. 268–83;CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMedKadin, Miriam L., “Modernization and the Social Inequality of Death in the United States, 1910–1970” (Ph.D. diss., Brown University, 1982), chap. 1;Google ScholarPreston, Samuel H., Haines, Michael R., and Pamuk, Elsie, “Effects of Industrialization and Urbanization on Mortality in Developed Countries,” International Union for the Scientific Study of Population, International Population Conference, Manila, 1981, (Liege, 1981), vol. 2, pp. 233–54.Google Scholar

4 Morawetz, David, Twenty-Five Years of Economic Development (Baltimore, 1977), pp. 4750, 54–58; United Nations, Levels and Trends of Mortality since 1950 (New York, 1982), pp. 1, 60–64, and passim.Google Scholar

5 Sir Newsholme, Arthur, quoted in Titmuss, R. M., Birth, Poverty, and Wealth (London, 1943), p. 12.Google Scholar

6 Woodbury, Robert M., Infant Mortality and Its Causes (Baltimore, 1926).Google Scholar

7 Morawetz, Twenty-Five Years of Economic Development, chap. 3.Google Scholar

8 Antonovsky, Aaron and Bernstein, Judith, “Social Class and Infant Mortality,” Social Science and Medicine, 11 (05 1977), pp. 453–77; United Nations, Levels and Trends, pp. 60–65, 108–10, 138–41, 163–69, and The Determinants and Consequences of Population Trends: New Summary of Findings on Interactions of Demographic, Economic, and Social Factors (New York, 1973), vol. 1, pp. 132–42.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

9 Arthur Newsholme, quoted in Antonovsky and Bernstein, “Social Class and Infant Mortality,” p. 453.Google Scholar

10 Antonovsky, Aaron, “Social Class, Life Expectancy and Overall Mortality,” Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, 45 (1967), pp. 6668; Preston, Haines, and Pamuk, “Effects of Industrialization and Urbanization,” pp. 247–52.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

11 United Nations, Levels and Trends, pp. 58–60. Morris, J. N. and Heady, J. A., “Social and Biological Factors in Infant Mortality—V, Mortality in Relation to Father's Occupation, 1911–1950,” The Lancet (03 12, 1955), p. 556; Antonovsky and Bernstein, “Social Class and Infant Mortality,” pp. 458–9.Google Scholar

12 Humphreys, N. A., “Class Mortality Statistics,” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 50 (06 1887) p. 282.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Seutemann, K., “Kindersterblichkeit sozialer Bevölkerungsgruppen, insbesonders im preussischen Staate und senien Provinzen,” in Neumann, F. J., ed., Beiträge zur Geschichte der Bevölkerung in Deutschland seit dem Anfange dieses Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 1894), vol. 5, pp. 69167.Google Scholar

14 Morris and Heady, “Social and Biological Factors,” Fig. 3, p. 556; United Nations, Determinants and Consequences, pp. 138–39.Google Scholar

15 United Nations, Determinants and Consequences, p. 139.Google Scholar

16 Woodbury, Infant Mortality, Table 38.Google Scholar

17 United Nations, Determinants and Consequences, p. 137.Google Scholar

18 A problem arises because occupation of father or mother at the time of the record (death certificate or census enumeration) may not have been the same occupation when the child died. Further, the socioeconomic circumstances which contributed to child mortality may have been reflected by previous rather than current occupation. It is true, however, that occupation tended to be stable over short periods of time and that upward occupational mobility was not dramatic over brief periods.Google Scholar

19 Johnson, R. Christian, “The 1900 Census Sampling Project: Methods and Procedures for Sampling and Data Entry,” Historical Methods (Fall 1978), pp. 147–51; England and Wales, Registrar General, Census of England and Wales, 1911, vol. 13, “Fertility of Marriage,” Part 11 (London, 1923).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20 For example, Innes, J. W., Class Fertility Differentials in England and Wales, 1876–1934 (Princeton, 1938), pp. 4152.Google Scholar

21 England and Wales, “Fertility of Marriage,” pp. vii–xi;Google ScholarPreston, Samuel H. and Haines, Michael R., “New Estimates of Child Mortality in the United States at the Turn of the Century,” Journal of the American Statistical Association, 79 (06 1984), pp. 272, 277–78.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed For a favorable evaluation of another sample from the 1900 American census, see Smith, Daniel Scott, “Differential Mortality in the United States before 1900,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 13 (Spring 1983), pp. 736–46.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

22 United Nations, Indirect Techniques for Demographic Estimation, Manual X (New York, 1983), pp. 73–85.Google Scholar

23 Coale, Ansley and Demeny, Paul, Regional Model Life Tables and Stable Populations (Princeton, 1966), pp. 541.Google Scholar

24 Smith, Daniel Scott, “Differential Mortality in the United States before 1900,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 13 (Spring 1983), p. 14. The West Model works well for the total and white populations, but may not be as suitable for the black population. Preston and Haines, “New Estimates of Child Mortality,” p. 274;CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMedZelnik, Melvin, “Age Patterns of Mortality of American Negroes: 1900–02 to 1959–61,” Journal of the American Statistical Association, 64 (06 1969), pp. 433–46.Google Scholar

25 For England and Wales, the standard life table chosen gives a mortality level slightly too favorable. The mortality index for the country as a whole is actually 1.06 instead of 1.00. But that is really only important as a scaling matter, on the assumption of linear relationships. Linear relationsips are a close approximation in the intermediate range of Coale and Demeny model life tables. For the United States, the standard life table chosen yields a mortality index for the country as a whole of 1.0088, which is very close to 1.00.Google Scholar

26 As a check on the data for England and Wales, the differentials were compared to those from the first vital statistics tabulation (1911) of the infant mortality rate by this social class categorization. (Great Britain, Registrar General, Seventy-Fourth Annual Report of the Register General of Births, Deaths, and Marriages in England and Wales, 1911 [London, 1913], pp. 73, 88.) The results are as follows:Google Scholar

The comparison is quite close, despite the fact that the census results apply to children as well as infants, while the vital statistics results apply only to infants. Further, the vital statistics data come from only one year of experience (1911) and are thus subject to more variability. In addition, a zero- order correlation between 116 detailed occupational categories of the census mortality index and the 1911 vital statistics infant mortality rate gave a quite close relationship (r = 0.960)

27 United Nations, Indirect Techniques, pp. 74–75, 83.Google Scholar

28 For example, Laurie, Bruce, Hershberg, Theodore, and Alter, George, “Immigrants and Industry: The Philadelphia Experience, 1850–1880,” Journal of Social History, 9 (12 1975), pp. 219–48;Google ScholarHaines, Michael R., “Fertility and Marriage in a Nineteenth-Century Industrial City: Philadelphia, 1850–1880,” This JOURNAL, 40 (03 1980), Tables 1 and 2.Google Scholar

29 For a discussion of problems with the 1911 English census social class categories, see Armstrong, W. A., “The Use of Information about Occupation,” in Wrigley, E. A., ed., Nineteenth Century Society: Essays in the Use of Quantitive Methods for the Study of Social Data (Cambridge, 1972), pp. 203–6.Google Scholar

30 Preston, Haines, and Parnuk, “Effects of Industrialization and Urbanization,” pp. 237–46.Google Scholar

31 Antonovsky and Bernstein, “Social Class and Infant Mortality,” Table 2.Google Scholar

32 England and Wales, Registrar General, Census of England and Wales, 1911, vol. 10, “Occupations and Industries,” Part II (London, 1914), Table 13.Google Scholar

33 Preston, Haines, and Pamuk, “Effects of Industrialization and Urbanization,” Tables I and 2. For England and Wales, the mortality index values were: London 1.06; county boroughs 1.23; other urban districts 1.03; rural districts .84.Google Scholar

34 United States Bureau of the Census, Twenty Censuses: Population and Housing Questions, 1790–1980 (Washington, D.C., 1979), pp. 35–36; Armstrong, “The Use of Information about Occupation,” pp. 191–92, 203–11, 226–28.Google Scholar

35 Income measures between the United States and England are not strictly comparable. American incomes were largely actual yearly incomes from the 1901 Commissioner of Labor Survey, while English incomes were full-time equivalent annual earnings. Nonetheless, the relative incomes, as given by the index, should be independent of level. The index reflects higher relative incomes among most English professionals.Google Scholar

36 For example, all teachers in the United States had a mortality index of 1.00, while native white teachers had an index of .79, still above the .57 value for English teachers. For physicians and surgeons, the index was .97 overall and .84 for native whites, in contrast to the .43 for England and Wales.Google Scholar

37 The difference between the child mortality indices was tested for statistical significance for these selected occupational groups. To do this, several steps were necessary. First, the index values were normalized so that the national average values were 1.0000. Second, these normalized values were converted to q(5) values by multiplying them by the q(5) value in the American model table (West model, level 13, both sexes combined assuming a sex ratio of 1.05 at birth; q(5) = .19119). This basically reduced both sets of differentials to a common mortality level. Third, it was assumed that these q(5) values approximately followed a binomial process where q(5) = p and σ = , where n was number of children ever born to that occupational group. Finally, the statistical difference of these values was tested using the formula: This yielded the following t-statistics:Google Scholar

All but textile workers and native white agricultural laborers showed differences which were significant at least at a 5 percent level (two-tailed test)

38 Preston and Haines, “New Estimates of Child Mortality,” pp. 278–79.Google Scholar

39 The index of dissimilarity and the Atkinson index are already weighted.Google Scholar

40 Higher fertility, of course, promotes higher child mortality through the adverse effects of close spacing and high parity on child survival.Google Scholar

41 The effect of social class mortality rates versus the distribution of children ever born (that is, the “weights”) may be seen in the following example:Google Scholar

The use of weights reduces but does not eliminate the gap in the inequality measure. On the other hand the use of English social class child mortality rates with American weights results in a coefficient of variation (.30) far above that for the case with English weights and American rates (.11). The same is true when the 1911 English classes are used to calculate the coefficient of variation.

42 Keyfltz, Nathan and Flieger, Wilhelm, World Population: An Analysis of Vital Data (Chicago, 1968), p. 526;Google ScholarMitchell, B. R. and Deane, Phyllis, Abstract of British Historical Statistics (Cambridge, 1971), pp. 3643;Google ScholarHaines, Michael R., “The Use of Model Life Tables to Estimate Mortality for the United States in the Nineteenth Century,” Demography, 16 (05 1979), Table 7, gives an estimate of 46.7 for the U.S. model and 47.8 for the West model. Preston and Haines, “New Estimates,” Table 1, gives an estimate of expectation of life at birth of 50.1, consistent with child mortality in the West Model system.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

43 Kuznets, Simon, Modern Economic Growth: Rate, Structure, and Spread (New Haven, 1966), pp. 107–8, 272.Google Scholar

44 Williamson and Lindert, American Inequality, pp. 281–85; Williamson, “The Structure of Pay in Britain,” pp. 22–24.Google Scholar

45 Preston, Haines, and Pamuk, “Effects of Industrialization and Urbanization,” pp. 251–52; United Nations, Determinants and Consequences, pp. 279–81.Google Scholar

46 Hollingsworth, “Inequality in Levels of Health,” pp. 279–81.Google Scholar

47 Shryock, Richard H., The Development of Modern Medicine: An Interpretation of the Social and Scientific Factors Involved (New York, 1947), chap. 15;Google ScholarBenjamin, B., “The Urban Background to Public Health Changes in England and Wales, 1900–1950,” Population Studies, 17 (1964), pp. 225 and passim.Google Scholar

48 Williamson, “The Structure of Pay in Britain,” pp. 36–37.Google ScholarRouth, Guy, Occupation and Pay in Great Britain, 1906–1960 (Cambridge, 1965), pp. 6061.Google Scholar

49 United States, Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970 (Washington, D.C., 1975), vol. I, Series D, pp. 85–86.Google Scholar

50 The groups actually included were: Farmer's Sons; Officers of Local Authorities; Goldsmiths and Silversmiths; Watchmakers and Clockmakers; Bakers and Confectioners. Missing were such groups as: Coffee and Eating House Keepers; Inn and Hotel Keepers; Publicans; Boarding and Lodging House Keepers; Dealers and Merchants in various products (for example, coal, timber, wood, cork, bark, boots and shoes, corn, flour, seed); Drapers; General Shopkeepers; Grocers; Greengrocers; Tobacconists; Milksellers and Dairymen; Cheesemongers and Buttermen; Fishmongers, Poulterers and Game Dealers; Clothiers and Outfitters.Google Scholar

51 Shryock, The Development of Modern Medicine, chap. 15.Google Scholar

52 A more precise correction for heteroscedasticity is to use the square roots of children ever born as weights. This would be less valuable in obtaining weights representative of the population. The use of square roots actually makes little difference in the final results.Google Scholar

53 Regressions were run using the two different social class groups as independent variables and three earnings variables (earnings, inverse of earnings, and log of earnings) as dependent variables for both ordinary and weighted least squares. The results, in terms of R2, ranged from .452 to .867. Only I of the 12 equations had an R2 below 0.50.Google Scholar

54 The 1950 American occupational groupings were not included in Table 5 since the 1911 English social classes performed so well.Google Scholar

55 Regressions similar to those mentioned in footnote 53 were run for England and Wales using the 1911 social class group dummies as independent variables and three earnings variables (earnings, inverse of earnings, and log of earnings) as dependent variables, using both ordinary and weighted least squares. R2 values ranged from .546 to .707.Google Scholar

56 The coefficients of variation for the mortality index in the regression models were:Google Scholar

57 Grossman, Michael, The Demand for Health: A Theoretical Investigation (New York, 1972), pp. xiii–xvii.Google Scholar