Social Differences in Mortality in the Eighteenth Century: An Analysis of Berlin Church Registers

Abstract

SUMMARYThis paper investigates social differences in mortality on the basis of information provided by the registers of two Berlin parishes. The life expectancy of the lower classes was half as long again as that of the upper classes. This gap is smaller than that documented by Perrenoud for Geneva in the seventeenth century, but larger than that documented for contemporary small towns and medium-size cities.Particularly infants and small children were the victims of “social inequality before death”, adults were only marginally affected. Nor did the major epidemics and diseases contribute much to this inequality. Although neither the use of animal milk for feeding nor leaving children with wetnurses in the country were common in Berlin at this time, conditions in this early-industrial city contributed to extremely high levels of infant mortality for specific sections of the population.