Trends in SES Differentials in Child Mortality across the 20th Century

John R. Warren, University of Minnesota
Elaine Hernandez, University of Minnesota

Did socioeconomic inequalities in mortality increase, decrease, or remain constant in the United States over the course of the 20th century? Unfortunately, existing studies of “long-term” trends go back in time to only 1960 in the US and World War II in Western Europe. In this project we use data from the 1910 US Census and the 1990 and 1995 June Current Population Surveys to estimate changes over the 20th century in the association between SES and child mortality. Each survey asks women about the number of children they have ever had and the number who are still surviving; using this information it is possible to estimate the probability that a baby will survive to particular ages. In our analyses we will consider how differences in child mortality estimates across occupation groups have changes between 1010 and 1995.