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Maternal bereavement: The heightened mortality of mothers after the death of a child

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  • Espinosa, Javier
  • Evans, William N.

Abstract

Using a 9-year follow-up of 69,224 mothers aged 20–50 from the National Longitudinal Mortality Survey, we investigate whether there is heightened mortality of mothers after the death of a child. Results from Cox proportional hazard models indicate that the death of a child produces a statistically significant hazard ratio of 2.3. There is suggestive evidence that the heightened mortality is concentrated in the first two years after the death of a child. We find no difference in results based on mother's education or marital status, family size, the child's cause of death or the gender of the child.

Suggested Citation

  • Espinosa, Javier & Evans, William N., 2013. "Maternal bereavement: The heightened mortality of mothers after the death of a child," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 371-381.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ehbiol:v:11:y:2013:i:3:p:371-381
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ehb.2012.06.002
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    Cited by:

    1. Bernhard Schmidpeter, 2015. "The Fatal Consequences of Grief," CDL Aging, Health, Labor working papers 2015-07, The Christian Doppler (CD) Laboratory Aging, Health, and the Labor Market, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    2. Dan Chen & Yuying Tong, 2021. "Do Social Timing and Gender Matter to Parental Depression Aroused by Traumatic Experience of Child Bereavement? Evidence from China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(22), pages 1-12, November.
    3. Diego Alburez-Gutierrez & Ugofilippo Basellini & Emilio Zagheni, 2022. "When do parents bury a child? Quantifying uncertainty in the parental age at offspring loss," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2022-016, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    4. Donnelly, Rachel & Umberson, Debra & Hummer, Robert A. & Garcia, Michael A., 2020. "Race, death of a child, and mortality risk among aging parents in the United States," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 249(C).
    5. Schmidpeter, Bernhard, 2019. "Does stress shorten your life? Evidence from parental bereavement," Ruhr Economic Papers 834, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    6. Bernhard Schmidpeter, 2015. "The Fatal Consequences of Grief," Economics working papers 2015-06, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    7. repec:jku:cdlwps:2015_07 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Alburez-Gutierrez, Diego & Kolk, Martin & Zagheni, Emilio, 2019. "Women's experience of child death over the life course: A global demographic perspective," SocArXiv s69fz, Center for Open Science.
    9. Lee, Chioun & Glei, Dana A. & Weinstein, Maxine & Goldman, Noreen, 2014. "Death of a child and parental wellbeing in old age: Evidence from Taiwan," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 166-173.

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