Old–Age Mortality in a Life Course Perspective: Southern Sweden, 1829–1894

Tommy Bengtsson, Lund University
Göran Broström, Umea University

We have previously shown that the disease load experienced during the birth year had a significant net influence on old-age mortality. The question now is whether socioeconomic and other factors during the life course altered this pattern. Longitudinal data on individuals and households comes from five rural parishes in southern Sweden, 1829–1894. Immigrants into the parishes were traced back to their birth parish in order to garner information about the socioeconomic conditions of their early childhood. We use a Cox regression analysis approach with random effects to analyze mortality in ages 55+ years. The total number of deaths is 1,350. We find that the life expectancy at age 55 for those who were landless at the end of their working careers and had been exposed to a heavy disease load in the birth year was significantly shorter vis-à-vis the exposed that were landed.