Socio-economic differentials in infant and child mortality during mortality decline: England and Wales, 1890-1911.

Abstract

In this paper data from the 1911 Census of the Fertility of Marriage of England and Wales are used to study patterns of mortality decline by socio-economic characteristics, principally the occupation of husband. That census reported data on number of wives, children ever born, and children dead by marriage-duration cohorts for 190 non-overlapping occupations of husband. These results, along with those on number of rooms in the dwelling of the family are used to make indirect estimates of childhood mortality using the techniques described in United Nations, Manual X. These procedures produce values of q(a), the probability of dying before reaching some exact age ‘a’. Estimates for q(2), q(3), q(5), q(10), q(15), and q(20) are derived from data on women married 0–4, 5–9, 10–14, 15–19, 20–24, and 25–29 years, respectively. These estimates can also be dated to a point in the past. These values can also be converted to a corresponding level of a Model West life table, which describes the ‘average’ mortality re...