IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/dem/wpaper/wp-2023-050.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Leaving for life: using online crowd-sourced genealogies to estimate the migrant mortality advantage for the United Kingdom and Ireland during the 18 th and 19 th centuries

Author

Listed:
  • Elena Pojman

    (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany)

  • Duke Elijah Mwedzi

    (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany)

  • Orlando Olaya Bucaro

    (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany)

  • Stephanie Zhang

    (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany)

  • Michael Chong
  • Monica J. Alexander

    (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany)

  • Diego Alburez-Gutierrez

    (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany)

Abstract

Demographic studies consistently find a mortality advantage among migrants, but a lack of longitudinal data tracking individuals across national borders has limited the study of historical international migration. To address this gap, we use the crowd-sourced online genealogical database Familinx to estimate the migrant mortality advantage for migrants from the United Kingdom and Ireland between 1750 and 1910. We compare age at death for non-migrants and migrants to Canada, the United States, South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia using mixed-effects regression models that account for unobserved factors shared between siblings. Results suggest an overall expected migrant advantage of 5.9 years, 95% CI [5.7, 6.2] even after accounting for between-family variation, with migrants estimated to live an additional 2.6 [1.1, 4.0] to 8.7 [6.3, 11.2] years depending on the country of destination. This study contributes to the understanding of the migrant mortality advantage in a historical context and shows the potential for online genealogies to contribute to demographic research. Keywords: crowd-sourced genealogies, migrant mortality advantage, United Kingdom, Ireland, sibling effects

Suggested Citation

  • Elena Pojman & Duke Elijah Mwedzi & Orlando Olaya Bucaro & Stephanie Zhang & Michael Chong & Monica J. Alexander & Diego Alburez-Gutierrez, 2023. "Leaving for life: using online crowd-sourced genealogies to estimate the migrant mortality advantage for the United Kingdom and Ireland during the 18 th and 19 th centuries," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2023-050, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
  • Handle: RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-2023-050
    DOI: 10.4054/MPIDR-WP-2023-050
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.demogr.mpg.de/papers/working/wp-2023-050.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://osf.io/b87t6/
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.4054/MPIDR-WP-2023-050?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Australia; Canada; New Zealand; United Kingdom; USA; genealogy; migration; mortality; siblings;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
    • Z0 - Other Special Topics - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-2023-050. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Wilhelm (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.demogr.mpg.de/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.