IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/16133.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Inequality and Infant and Childhood Mortality in the United States in the Twentieth Century

Author

Listed:
  • Michael R. Haines

Abstract

This paper deals with the issue of using infant and childhood mortality as an indicator of inequality. The case is that of the United States in the 20th century. Using microdata from the 1900 and 1910 Integrated Public Use Microsamples (IPUMS), published data from the Birth Registration Area in the 1920s, results from a number of surveys, and the Linked Birth & Infant Death Files from the National Center for Health Statistics for 1991, infant and child mortality can be related to such other variables as occupation of father or mother, education of father or mother, family income, race, ethnicity, and residence. The evidence shows that, although there have been large absolute reductions in the level of infant and child mortality rates and also a reduction in the absolute levels of differences across socioeconomic groups, relative inequality has not diminished over the 20th century.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael R. Haines, 2010. "Inequality and Infant and Childhood Mortality in the United States in the Twentieth Century," NBER Working Papers 16133, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:16133
    Note: DAE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w16133.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hicks, Norman & Streeten, Paul, 1979. "Indicators of development: The search for a basic needs yardstick," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 7(6), pages 567-580, June.
    2. Samuel H. Preston & Michael R. Haines, 1991. "Fatal Years: Child Mortality in Late Nineteenth-Century America," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number pres91-1.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Rabbani, Sarah & Qayyun, Abdul, 2015. "Comparative Analysis of Factor Affecting Child Mortality in Pakistan," MPRA Paper 66533, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Dora L. Costa, 2015. "Health and the Economy in the United States from 1750 to the Present," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 53(3), pages 503-570, September.
    3. Bengtsson, Tommy & van Poppel, Frans, 2011. "Socioeconomic inequalities in death from past to present: An introduction," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 48(3), pages 343-356, July.

    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. Haines, Michael R., 2011. "Inequality and infant and childhood mortality in the United States in the twentieth century," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 48(3), pages 418-428, July.
    2. Barnes, Geoffrey & Guinnane, Timothy W., 2010. "Social Class and the Fertility Transition: A Critical Comment on the Statistical Results Reported in Simon Szreter's Fertility, Class and Gender in Great Britain, 1860-1940," Working Papers 87, Yale University, Department of Economics.
    3. Mina Baliamoune-Lutz, 2004. "On the Measurement of Human Well-being: Fuzzy Set Theory and Sen's Capability Approach," WIDER Working Paper Series RP2004-16, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    4. Stefania Albanesi & Claudia Olivetti, 2014. "Maternal health and the baby boom," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 5, pages 225-269, July.
    5. Zainab Iftikhar & Amanat Ali, 2012. "Impact Of Income Inequality And Defence Burden On Economic Growth," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 57(03), pages 1-15.
    6. Augustin Kwasi Fosu, 2009. "Inequality and the Impact of Growth on Poverty: Comparative Evidence for Sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(5), pages 726-745.
    7. Astrid Sneyers & Anneleen Vandeplas, 2013. "Girl Power in Agricultural Production: How Much Does it Yield? A Case-Study on the Dairy Sector in India," Working Papers id:5562, eSocialSciences.
    8. Karen Clay & Werner Troesken & Michael Haines, 2014. "Lead and Mortality," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 96(3), pages 458-470, July.
    9. John Mbaku, 1992. "Political instability and economic development in Sub-Saharan Africa: Further evidence," The Review of Black Political Economy, Springer;National Economic Association, vol. 20(4), pages 39-53, June.
    10. Michele Alacevich, 2010. "Development Agency or Bank? Vision and Strategy of the World Bank in the 50’s and 60’s," QA - Rivista dell'Associazione Rossi-Doria, Associazione Rossi Doria, issue 1, March.
    11. Rahman, Tauhidur & Mittelhammer, Ron C. & Wandschneider, Philip R., 2011. "Measuring quality of life across countries: A multiple indicators and multiple causes approach," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 43-52, February.
    12. James J. Feigenbaum & Christopher Muller & Elizabeth Wrigley-Field, 2019. "Regional and Racial Inequality in Infectious Disease Mortality in U.S. Cities, 1900–1948," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 56(4), pages 1371-1388, August.
    13. D K Despotis, 2005. "A reassessment of the human development index via data envelopment analysis," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 56(8), pages 969-980, August.
    14. Garfield O. Blake, 2015. "Using Increases in Criminal Deportees from the US to Estimate the Effect of Crime on Economic Growth and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean," Laws, MDPI, vol. 4(4), pages 1-18, November.
    15. Joseph Molitoris & Martin Dribe, 2016. "Industrialization and inequality revisited: mortality differentials and vulnerability to economic stress in Stockholm, 1878–1926," European Review of Economic History, European Historical Economics Society, vol. 20(2), pages 176-197.
    16. Seema Jayachandran & Adriana Lleras-Muney & Kimberly V. Smith, 2009. "Modern Medicine and the 20th Century Decline in Mortality: Evidence on the Impact of Sulfa Drugs," NBER Working Papers 15089, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Augustin Kwasi Fosu, 2008. "Inequality and the growth-poverty nexus: specification empirics using African data," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(7), pages 563-566.
    18. Salih, Siddig Abdulmageed, 2011. "Comprehensive Human Development: Realities and Aspirations," Islamic Economic Studies, The Islamic Research and Training Institute (IRTI), vol. 19, pages 19-49.
    19. Olivetti, Claudia & Paserman, M. Daniele & Salisbury, Laura, 2018. "Three-generation mobility in the United States, 1850–1940: The role of maternal and paternal grandparents," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 73-90.
    20. Bengtsson, Tommy & Broström, Göran, 2009. "Do conditions in early life affect old-age mortality directly and indirectly? Evidence from 19th-century rural Sweden," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 68(9), pages 1583-1590, May.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health
    • N12 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - U.S.; Canada: 1913-

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:nbr:nberwo:16133. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    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.