The Lasting Damage to Mortality of Early-Life Adversity: Evidence from the English Famine of the late 1720s

Marc Klemp and Jacob Weisdorf

No 11-14, Discussion Papers from University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper explores the long-term impact on mortality of exposure to early-life hardship. Using survival analysis, we document that birth during the great English famine of the late 1720s manifest itself in an increased death risk throughout life among those who survive the famine years. Using demographic data from the Cambridge Group’s Population History of England, we find that the death risk of affected individuals who survived to age 10 is up to 66 percent higher than that of their control–group counterparts (those born in the five years following the famine). This corresponds to a loss of life-expectancy of more than 12 years. We find that effects differ geographically as well as with the socioeconomic status of the household, with less well-off (manual-worker) families and families living in the English Midlands being hit the hardest. Evidence does not suggest, however, that children born in the five years prior to the famine suffered increased death risk.

Keywords: Death Risk; Malthus; Longevity; Positive Checks; Scarring Effect; Selection Effect (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 29 pages
Date: 2011-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea and nep-his
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.econ.ku.dk/english/research/publications/wp/dp_2011/1114.pdf/ (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The lasting damage to mortality of early-life adversity: evidence from the English famine of the late 1720s (2012)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kud:kuiedp:1114

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Papers from University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics Oester Farimagsgade 5, Building 26, DK-1353 Copenhagen K., Denmark. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Thomas Hoffmann (thho@kb.dk).