Abstract

In this paper we describe the contours of the mortality transition taking place in the Netherlands between the mid-nineteenth century and the end of the twentieth century. We first of all give an overview of the published statistical data that can be used to describe the mortality evolution. Next we present information on the development of our main mortality parameter, the expectation of life at birth, for males and females. We describe the changes in the age and sex patterns of mortality, making use of contour maps, and decomposition techniques. Then we describe the long-term trends in mortality by cause of death, focusing on the most relevant cause-of-death categories.

Introduction

The commonalities in the pattern of mortality decline in western industrialized countries has led to the formulation of the theory of the epidemiological transition (Omran 1971), a specification of the demographic transition theory. Omran described three stages in the mortality decline, each characterized by a differing cause-of-death pattern: the period in which pestilence and famine dominated the mortality regime, the age of receding pandemics and the age of degenerative and man-made diseases. The epidemiological transition theory gives a description of the basic characteristics of the mortality development in Europe between the middle of the nineteenth and the end of the twentieth centuries mostly based on French, English, Scandinavian and German studies. A key characteristic of the mortality pattern in traditional Europe was the wide regional differences that existed there until the end of the nineteenth century. Although mortality declined in all western industrialized countries, extreme diversity is visible in the dates at which the mortality decline began, the trend of the decline, the age-sex patterns of mortality and other characteristics of the mortality regime (Perrenoud 1999; Perrenoud & Bourdelais 1999). The Netherlands was among the forerunners in the epidemiological transition. Although compared to England and the Nordic countries death rates started to decline rather late, from the last quarter part of the nineteenth century on the Netherlands underwent such a fast decline in mortality that on the eve of the First World War the expectation of life was at the same level as that of the Scandinavian countries, England and Wales, Ireland, Belgium and Switzerland (Reher 2004; Riley 2001; Vallin 1991).