Unequal excess mortality during the Spanish Flu pandemic in the Netherlands

Auke Rijpma, Ingrid van Dijk, Ruben Schalk, Richard L. Zijdeman and Rick J. Mourits

Economics & Human Biology, 2022, vol. 47, issue C

Abstract: A century after the Spanish Flu, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought renewed attention to socioeconomic and occupational differences in mortality in the earlier pandemic. The magnitude of these differences and the pathways between occupation and increased mortality remain unclear, however. In this paper, we explore the relation between occupational characteristics and excess mortality among men during the Spanish Flu pandemic in the Netherlands. By creating a new occupational coding for exposure to disease at work, we separate social status and occupational conditions for viral transmission. We use a new data set based on men’s death certificates to calculate excess mortality rates by region, age group, and occupational group. Using OLS regression models, we estimate whether social position, regular interaction in the workplace, and working in an enclosed space affected excess mortality among men in the Netherlands in the autumn of 1918. We find some evidence that men with occupations that featured high levels of social contact had higher mortality in this period. Above all, however, we find a strong socioeconomic gradient to excess mortality among men during the Spanish Flu pandemic, even after accounting for exposure in the workplace.

Keywords: Excess mortality; 1918-9 influenza pandemic; Spanish flu; Socioeconomic health inequality; Occupational health risk (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I14 N34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ehbiol:v:47:y:2022:i:c:s1570677x22000752

DOI: 10.1016/j.ehb.2022.101179

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