Short Lives. The impact of parental death on early life mortality and height in the Netherlands 1850-1940

We investigate how parental death in infancy, childhood and adolescence affects boys’ health using two distinct measures: mortality before age 20 and height in young adulthood. These indicators enable us to identify critical age periods at which parental loss was most harmful for health, and to gain more insights into the mechanisms at play. Employing nationally representative data for the Netherlands for the period 1850-1940, we analyze survival of roughly 18,000 boys using Cox proportional hazard models, and stature of more than 4,000 young men using linear regression models. Results reveal that experiencing parental death in general and maternal death in particular during infancy and in early childhood is strongly associated with increased mortality risk. Among children aged 5-20, however, only paternal death is associated with increased mortality. Young adult height, in contrast, is most strongly affected by parental death taking place between the ages five and 12. While maternal death in this age group is associated with shorter height, paternal death is associated with taller stature among surviving children. Our results demonstrate that both indicators of health complement each other, and suggest that the loss of resources and care traditionally provided by mothers was particularly harmful for child well-being.