Explaining new trends in the gender gap of mortality: Insights from a regional trend- analysis of the Netherlands

The recent decrease of the male-female mortality gap in Western Europe has been accompanied by changes in the life style, educational level, family roles and employment of women. In this paper we try to find out whether a relationship indeed exists between the increase in gender equality and the decrease in the male/female mortality difference. We used regional-level data for the Netherlands for the periods 1980-83 and 1996-99 on gender differences in life expectancy, by age group and cause of death, and various measures of gender inequality on the same regional level. In doing this we followed as far as possible a framework recently developed by Ingrid Waldron to analyse changes in gender differences in mortality in the US. The cross-sectional analyses showed that in 1980-83 it was rather socioeconomic than gender role variables that were important in explaining gender difference in mortality, while in the period 1996-99, it was the other way around.

150 Years of temperature-related excess mortality in the Netherlands

Even in present-day high-income countries, there is a lot of evidence of a high degree of vulnerability of the population to both high and low outdoor temperatures. The magnitude of temperature-related mortality is strongly related to a wide variety of social, economic, and behavioural factors. To gain insight into the changing impact of cold and heat on mortality, we analyze Dutch individual death records in relation to daily temperature for the period 1855-2006 for one of the 11 Dutch provinces. Making use of negative binomial regression analysis, we study whether the effect of temperature varied by age, sex, and social class, and analyze the changes in the vulnerability to temperature fluctuations.cold spells, heat waves, infant mortality, mortality, Netherlands, temperature

Living conditions during childhood and survival in later life: study design and first results

'Während der letzten Jahrzehnte ist der Lebensweg als Annäherung zu menschlichem Überleben ein zentrales Thema in der Epidemiologie und Demographie geworden. Obwohl theoretisch eine vorausblickende Studie zu Geburtenkohorten die angemessenste Forschungskonzeption für diese Art von Studien ist, haben Probleme mit Daten diesen Ansatz praktisch undurchführbar gemacht. In dem Beitrag präsentieren die Verfasser den Hauptentwurf eines Projektes, in dem die Sie eine voraussichtliche Kohortenkonzeption für historische Populationen benutzen. Dieses Projekt basiert auf einem historischen Datenset für drei niederländische Provinzen und erstreckt sich über einen Zeitraum von Mitte des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts bis zum frühen einundzwanzigsten Jahrhundert. Die Studie legt den Fokus insbesondere auf die Einflüsse von drei spezifischen Bedingungen auf das Überleben während des Säuglingsalter und der Kindheit bis zum Erwachsenenalter und hohem Alter: die sozio-ökonomische Bedingung der Familie, die Komposition und Struktur der Familie und die physikalische Umgebung, in der Kinder den ersten Teil ihres Lebens verbringen. Die Verfasser skizzieren kurz den theoretischen Hintergrund ihrer Studie, diskutieren die Strategie der Datensammlung und das Forschungsgebiet und präsentieren die ersten Ergebnisse einer Analyse eines Teils des Datensets, der kürzlich zugänglich wurde.' (Autorenreferat)'During the last decades, the life course approach to human survival has become a central topic in epidemiology and demography. Although in theory a prospective birth cohort study is the most appropriate research design for this kind of study, data problems have made this approach practically unfeasable. In their paper the author's present the main outlines of a project in which they use a prospective cohort design for a historical population. The project is based on a historical data-set for three provinces in the Netherlands, covering a time period from the mid-nineteenth to the early twenty-first century. Their study focuses in particular on the impact on survival to adulthood and old age of three specific conditions during infancy and childhood: the socio-economic condition of the family, the composition and structure of the family and the physical environment in which children spent the first part of their life. The author's briefly sketch the theoretical backgrounds of their study, discuss the data collection strategy and the study area, and present the first results of an analysis of a part of the data-set that recently became available.' (author's abstract

Changes in choice of spouse as an indicator of a society in a state of transition: Woerden, 1830-1930

Der Prozeß der Modernisierung hat auch in sozialer Hinsicht eine offene Gesellschaft geschaffen. Ein Indikator dafür ist das Maß an äußerer Übereinstimmung zwischen Ehepartnern. Die These, daß die Modernisierung der Gesellschaft auch eine freiere und weniger pragmatische Partnerwahl begünstigt, wird überprüft. Auf der Quellengrundlage der eingetragenen Ehen, die in der niederländischen Stadt Woerden von 1830 - 1930 geschlossen wurden, werden der Wandel in der sozialen, altersmäßigen und religiösen Übereinstimmung bei der Partnerwahl untersucht. Dabei werden sechs soziale Klassen zwischen 'Ungelernte Arbeiter' und 'Oberklasse' sowie die Religionen römisch-katholisch, calvinistisch und lutheranisch unterschieden. Die sozialen, religiösen und Altersfaktoren werden in einem Beziehungszusammenhang betrachtet. Es zeigt sich, daß die Alters- und soziale Klassenübereinstimmung abnehmen, während die religiöse Übereinstimmung zunimmt. (prf)'The 19th and 20th centuries have been an era characterised by social modernisation spurred on primarily by economic developments. The process of modernisation also had an impact on interpersonal relationships and resulted in a more open society. The degree of homogamy between husbands and wives is an important indicator for societal openness, the theory being that the changes which occurred during this period enabled people to be freer and less pragmatic when choosing a spouse. This paper examines this thesis by studying changes in social class, age- and religious homogamy based on marriage data for the town of Woerden during the period 1830-1930. In contrast to other studies which examined the degree of homogamy of each of these variables in isolation, our aim was to reveal the interrelationship between the factors which influenced a person's choice of spouse, using log-linear analyses. The results show that a unidimensional model positing a trend towards increasing openness can be misleading. A decline in social class homogamy and an increase in age homogamy - indicators which would suggest that people had more freedom when it came to choosing a spouse - were found to go hand in hand with an increase in religious homogamy - indicative of a society in the ever-tightening grip of religion.' (author's abstract

Roken veroorzaakte vroeger grote verschillen in levensverwachting

In november 2015 werd de landelijke campagne ‘We gaan voor een rookvrije generatie’ gestart. Een campagne gericht op het ontmoedigen van roken op jonge leeftijd. Ervaringen die men op jonge leeftijd opdoet zijn van groot belang voor gedragingen op latere leeftijd en kunnen enorme effecten met zich meebrengen. Voor roken zijn de negatieve effecten op de gezondheid inmiddels alom bekend. De generaties geboren aan het begin van de twintigste eeuw leefden echter in een compleet andere context, waarbij mannen massaal rookten en vrouwen amper. Dit verschil in rookgewoontes blijkt verantwoordelijk te zijn voor het oplopen van het verschil in levensverwachting tussen mannen en vrouwen geboren tussen 1895 en 1925, tot meer dan 8 jaar in het voordeel van de vrouwen

Diffusion of a Social Norm: Tracing the Emergence of the Housewife in the Netherlands, 1812-1922

The emergence of the housewife in the Netherlands over the period 1812-1922 was strongly influenced by the social norm that women should withdraw from the labour market on the eve of marriage. Adherence to this norm is most clearly reflected in the emergence of the housewife among the lower classes, especially at the close of the nineteenth century among wives of farmers. Women in urban municipalities, however, set the norm far earlier and differences across social classes were signif

Gains in Life Expectancy Associated with Higher Education in Men

Background: Many studies show large differences in life expectancy across the range of education, intelligence, and socio-economic status. As educational attainment, intelligence, and socio-economic status are highly interrelated, appropriate methods are required to disentangle their separate effects. The aim of this paper is to present a novel method to estimate gains in life expectancy specifically associated with increased education. Our analysis is based on a structural model in which education level, IQ at age 18 and mortality all depend on (latent) intelligence. The model allows for (selective) educational choices based on observed factors and on an unobserved factor capturing intelligence. Our estimates are based on information from health examinations of military conscripts born in 1944–1947 in The Netherlands and their vital status through age 66 (n = 39,798). Results: Our empirical results show that men with higher education have lower mortality. Using structural models to account for education choice, the estimated gain in life expectancy for men moving up one educational level ranges from 0.3 to 2 years. The estimated gain in months alive over the observational period ranges from -1.2 to 5.7 months. The selection effect is positive and amounts to a gain of one to two months. Decomposition of the selection effect shows that the gain from selection on (latent) intelligence is larger than the gain from selection on observed factors and amounts to 1.0 to 1.7 additional months alive. Conclusion: Our findings confirm the strong selection into education based on socio-economic status and intelligence. They also show significant higher life expectancy among individuals with higher education after the selectivity of education choice has been taken into account. Based on these estimates, it is plausible therefore that increases in education could lead to increases in life expectancy

War- and famine-related excess mortality among civilians in the Netherlands, 1944-1945

National estimates exist for war- and famine-related deaths in the Netherlands during the last stages of World War II, but no such estimates are available at the local level. To fill this information gap, this article aims at mapping and visualizing the timing of war- and famine-related excess mortality by municipality among the civilian population within the Netherlands. We use mortality statistics at the level of municipalities because these are the smallest administrative units for which this information is available. We use a seasonally adjusted mortality model combined with a difference-in-difference approach to estimate the number of excess deaths in the period between January 1944 and July 1945 separately for each Dutch municipality

The Trade-Off between Female Fertility and Longevity during the Epidemiological Transition in the Netherlands

Several hypotheses have been put forward to explain the relationship between women's fertility and their post-reproductive longevity. In this study, we focus on the disposable soma theory, which posits that a negative relationship between women's fertility and longevity can be understood as an evolutionary trade-off between reproduction and survival. We examine the relationship between fertility and longevity during the epidemiological transition in the Netherlands. This period of rapid decline in mortality from infectious diseases offers a good opportunity to study the relationship between fertility and longevity, using registry data from 6,359 women born in The Netherlands between 1850 and 1910. We hypothesize that an initially negative relationship between women's fertility and their longevity gradually turns less negative during the epidemiological transition, because of decreasing costs of higher parities. An initially inversed U-shaped association between fertility and longevity changes to zero during the epidemiological transition. This does suggest a diminishing environmental pressure on fertility. However, we find no evidence of an initial linear trade-off between fertility and post-reproductive survival