IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v66y2008i5p1070-1083.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A health transition: Birth weights, households and survival in an Australian working-class population sample born 1857-1900

Author

Listed:
  • McCalman, Janet
  • Morley, Ruth
  • Mishra, Gita

Abstract

There is increasing interest in life course epidemiology. In this article we investigated the relationship between characteristics at birth and survival and year of birth and survival. We have detailed information about birth characteristics and cause of death for 8584 subjects from a cohort of 16,272 registered live births to European Australians in a charity hospital in Melbourne between 1857 and 1900. Women giving birth at the hospital were among the poorest in Melbourne, with almost half unmarried. The adult death certificates of the subjects were traced until 1985. We found that infant mortality was substantially higher in babies who were illegitimate, firstborn, had younger mothers, a birth weight

Suggested Citation

  • McCalman, Janet & Morley, Ruth & Mishra, Gita, 2008. "A health transition: Birth weights, households and survival in an Australian working-class population sample born 1857-1900," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(5), pages 1070-1083, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:66:y:2008:i:5:p:1070-1083
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(07)00630-2
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert Millward & Frances Bell, 2001. "Infant Mortality in Victorian Britain: The Mother as Medium[Thanks are]," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 54(4), pages 699-733, November.
    2. Stephen Nicholas & Deborah Oxley, 1993. "The living standards of women during the industrial revolution, 1795-1820," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 46(4), pages 723-749, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bernard Harris & Roderick Floud & Robert W. Fogel & Sok Chul Hong, 2010. "Diet, Health and Work Intensity in England and Wales, 1700-1914," NBER Working Papers 15875, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Alexander Stimpfle & David Stadelmann, 2016. "Does Central Europe Import the Missing Women Phenomenon?," CREMA Working Paper Series 2016-04, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    3. Daniel Gallardo‐Albarrán, 2020. "Sanitary infrastructures and the decline of mortality in Germany, 1877–1913," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 73(3), pages 730-757, August.
    4. Robert C. Allen, 2015. "The high wage economy and the industrial revolution: a restatement," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 68(1), pages 1-22, February.
    5. Ljungberg, Jonas, 2013. "A Scientific Revolution that Made Life Longer. Schooling and the Decline of Infant Mortality in Europe," Lund Papers in Economic History 127, Lund University, Department of Economic History.
    6. Baten, Jorg & Murray, John E., 2000. "Heights of Men and Women in 19th-Century Bavaria: Economic, Nutritional, and Disease Influences," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 351-369, October.
    7. Timothy J. Hatton, 2011. "Infant mortality and the health of survivors: Britain, 1910–50," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 64(3), pages 951-972, August.
    8. Robert C. Allen, 2015. "The high wage economy and the industrial revolution: a restatement," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 68(1), pages 1-22, February.
    9. Horrell, Sara & Oxley, Deborah, 2016. "Gender bias in nineteenth-century England: Evidence from factory children," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 22(C), pages 47-64.
    10. Eric Melander & Martina Miotto, 2023. "Welfare Cuts and Crime: Evidence from the New Poor Law," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 133(651), pages 1248-1264.
    11. Eric B. Schneider, 2017. "Children's growth in an adaptive framework: explaining the growth patterns of American slaves and other historical populations," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 70(1), pages 3-29, February.
    12. Benjamin Schneider, 2022. "Good Jobs and Bad Jobs in History," Oxford Economic and Social History Working Papers _202, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    13. Helen Paul, 2015. "Editorial: Women in economic and social history: twenty-fifth anniversary of the Women's Committee of the Economic History Society," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 68(2), pages 1-17, May.
    14. Paul Atkinson & Brian Francis & Ian Gregory & Catherine Porter, 2017. "Patterns of infant mortality in rural England and Wales, 1850–1910," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 70(4), pages 1268-1290, November.
    15. Komlos, John & Baten, Jörg, 2003. "Looking Backward and Looking Forward: Anthropometric Research and the Development of Social Science History," Discussion Papers in Economics 59, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    16. Paul Johnson & Stephen Nicholas, 1997. "Health and Welfare of Women in the United Kingdom, 1785-1920," NBER Chapters, in: Health and Welfare during Industrialization, pages 201-250, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Komlos, John, 2009. "How useful is anthropometric history?," Discussion Papers in Economics 10587, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    18. Pei Gao & Eric B. Schneider, 2021. "The growth pattern of British children, 1850–1975," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 74(2), pages 341-371, May.
    19. Kris Inwood & Evan Roberts, 2010. "Longitudinal Studies Of Human Growth And Health: A Review Of Recent Historical Research," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(5), pages 801-840, December.
    20. Pei Gao & Eric B. Schneider, 2021. "The growth pattern of British children, 1850–1975," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 74(2), pages 341-371, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:66:y:2008:i:5:p:1070-1083. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.