La mortalité infantile en Grande-Bretagne : un bilan des connaissances historiques

Abstract

This paper provides a concise review of what is known about long-term trends in infant mortality rates in Britain since the middle of the sixteenth century. It considers, first, various estimates of infant mortality based on E.A. Wrigley and R.S. Schofield's estimâtes of life expectancy at birth for England, 1541-1871, which it compares with equivalent series for groups of parishes and the families of the British peerage. Secondly, it explores the variations between infant mortality rates that were likely in different forms of environment, especially the urban and the rural. Thirdly, the paper suggests that the conditions affecting an individual's mortality in infancy may also have had a bearing on that same individual's life chance in adulthood. It considers this possibility further using Thomas Hollingsworth's data for the British peerage. Fourthly, the paper attempts to provide some estimates of the social class variations in infant mortality in England and Wales in comparison with those in the USA at the end of the nineteenth and early years of the twentieth century. Lastly, some of these regularities are considered form an epidemiological perspective by examining cause of death patterns among children.