The Decline of Infant Mortality in Europe, 1800-1950: Four national case studies

Pier Paolo Viazzo and Carlo A. Corsini

Historical Perspectives

Abstract: The basic facts about the secular decline of infant mortality in Europe have been known for nearly a century. Regristration series show that the levels of infant mortality in the late nineteenth century were still extremely high and could vary quite markedly from one country to another, ranging from about 100 per 1,000 live births in Norway and Sweden to 200 or even 250 per 1,000 in countries such as Germany, Austria and Russia. At the turn of the century, however, infant mortality began to fall almost right across the continent. By the 1950s, when national rates of infant mortality ranged between 20 and 50 per 1,000, the process of convergence was nearly completed. The fall in infant mortality, which was paralelled by a simultaneous and equally pronounced decline in fertility, was responsible for raising life expectancy in many European countries by more than 10 years over a remarkably short period of time. The countries reviewed in this publication are Sweden, England, France and Austria.

Keywords: child development; health policy; historical analysis; infant mortality; social policy; Europe (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J11 J13 N33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 86
Date: 1993
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
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:ucf:hisper:hisper93/3

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://www.unicef-i ... al-case-studies.html
The price is All UNICEF Office of Research - Innocenti publications can be downloaded from our website free of charge. Printed copies of some titles can also be ordered from the United Nations Publications website https://shop.un.org/search/unicef/node/29892.

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Historical Perspectives
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Patrizia Faustini ().