Suchergebnisse

Untersuchung im Rahmen des World Fertility Survey in 2.599 Haushalten. Todesursachendifferenzierung nach dritten und weiteren bzw. fünften und weiteren Kindern; getrennt nach städtischen und ländlichen Haushalten. Wichtiger als alles andere: Zahl der Schwangerschaften, Verwandtschaftsgrad der Ehepartner, Wasserqualität und sanitäre Gegebenheiten. Nur in ländlichen Gebieten Ausbildungsgrad der Frauen von Bedeutung für die Geburtenplanung. (DÜI-Seu)

Developments in infant mortality in Germany have previously only been documented in a fragmentary fashion for the 19th century as a whole, and only on a small scale for the period prior to 1871. For the first time, this paper lays a solid statistical foundation by reprocessing the figures assembled by the German states of that time. The reconstructed national statistical series (from 1826 onwards) reveals a comparatively high infant mortality, with minor deviations until the turn of the 20th century. The impact of urbanisation and industrialisation is not denied, but an evaluation of the different regional patterns and trends leads to a new weighting. The living and working conditions in the countryside were thus highly determining. The relationship between fertility and infant mortality is assessed differently for the era of the sustained reduction in fertility than for the preceding period. All in all, the prevalent customs and attitudes are regarded as being vital to infants' survival chances. We therefore need to look at attitudes among the educated public and the authorities. Efforts on the part of these groups to bring about change were particularly observed in the South West, where an awareness of the dramatic problem arose comparatively early. Further historic research at the regional level will be needed in order to achieve a final evaluation of these processes.

ABSTRACTStudies of modern famines have found disproportionately high mortality amongst adult men. The most commonly suggested root of this 'female mortality advantage' is biological, and it seems to be strongest when starvation is the main cause of death. The present study is the first to investigate the phenomenon in an early-modern society. Looking at the famines of 1597 and 1623 in northwest England, it finds some evidence for a female mortality advantage in 1623, but that this was concentrated in the first 12 months of the crisis (after the 1622 harvest). The female advantage was also much greater in north Lancashire and Westmorland than it was in the wealthier western Lancashire plain. Together this supports the idea that there was actual starvation during the 1623 crisis, at least in these areas at these times. There are, however, some reasons to suppose that the most mortal phase of the crisis, around the winter of 1623–1624, took place at a time when food was becoming more widely available, and hence should be attributed to diseases that followed the famine.

Cluster sampling has recently been used to estimate the mortality in various conflicts around the world. The Burnham et al. study on Iraq employs a new variant of this cluster sampling methodology. The stated methodology of Burnham et al. is to (1) select a random main street, (2) choose a random cross street to this main street, and (3) select a random household on the cross street to start the process. The authors show that this new variant of the cluster sampling methodology can introduce an unexpected, yet substantial, bias into the resulting estimates, as such streets are a natural habitat for patrols, convoys, police stations, road-blocks, cafes, and street-markets. This bias comes about because the residents of households on cross-streets to the main streets are more likely to be exposed to violence than those living further away. Here, the authors develop a mathematical model to gauge the size of the bias and use the existing evidence to propose values for the parameters that underlie the model. The research suggests that the Burnham et al. study of conflict mortality in Iraq may represent a substantial overestimate of mortality. Indeed, the recently published Iraq Family Health Survey covered virtually the same time period as the Burnham et al. study, used census-based sampling techniques, and produced a central estimate for violent deaths that was one fourth of the Burnham et al. estimate. The authors provide a sensitivity analysis to help readers to tune their own judgements on the extent of this bias by varying the parameter values. Future progress on this subject would benefit from the release of high-resolution data by the authors of the Burnham et al. study.