IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/luekhi/0127.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Scientific Revolution that Made Life Longer. Schooling and the Decline of Infant Mortality in Europe

Author

Listed:

Abstract

This paper addresses the decline in infant mortality that occurred with a remarkable synchronization across Europe around the turn of the century 1900. It is the argument of this paper that this development is not just, as in the conventional view, the side effect of economic growth but could be derived through a cumulative chain of events, starting with the discovery of the germ theory. Mokyr has argued, that notwithstanding the ubiquitous impact of the germ theory in several fields, its first big effect, as a decline in mortality, came through changed behaviour in the household. What makes this plausible is that the turn-down occurred at the about the same time irrespective of the wide variations in levels of infant mortality, and irrespective of levels of aggregate income and economic growth. Growth was certainly crucial for sustaining the decline in mortality but the synchronized change of the trend draws attention to a shift in behaviour. A critical question for this argument is if the germ theory and its implications were so quickly and widely diffused. Schooling was an instrument for this diffusion and could be so since there existed an international movement around school hygiene which made the impact of the germ theory more pervasive than if it had only influenced via the curriculum. This hypothesis is supported by a cross-country model which singles out the enrolment in primary schools as an explanatory factor for the decline in infant mortality 1890-1910, and the more so when female enrolment is considered.

Suggested Citation

  • Ljungberg, Jonas, 2013. "A Scientific Revolution that Made Life Longer. Schooling and the Decline of Infant Mortality in Europe," Lund Papers in Economic History 127, Lund University, Department of Economic History.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:luekhi:0127
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ekh.lu.se/media/ekh/forskning/lund_papers_in_economic_history/127.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Oded Galor & Omer Moav, 2000. "Natural Selection and the Origin of economic Growth," Working Papers 2000-18, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    2. Oded_Galor, 2004. "From Stagnation to Growth:Unified Growth Theory," Working Papers 2004-15, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    3. Jamison, Eliot A. & Jamison, Dean T. & Hanushek, Eric A., 2007. "The effects of education quality on income growth and mortality decline," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 771-788, December.
    4. Oded Galor & Omer Moav, 2002. "Natural Selection and the Origin of Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(4), pages 1133-1191.
    5. Peter Lindert, 2004. "Social Spending and Economic Growth," Challenge, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(4), pages 6-16.
    6. Mokyr, Joel, 1993. "Technological Progress and the Decline of European Mortality," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(2), pages 324-330, May.
    7. Galor, Oded, 2005. "From Stagnation to Growth: Unified Growth Theory," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 4, pages 171-293, Elsevier.
    8. Mokyr, Joel, 2000. "Why “More Work for Mother?†Knowledge and Household Behavior, 1870–1945," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 60(1), pages 1-41, March.
    9. Samuel H. Preston & Michael R. Haines, 1991. "Fatal Years: Child Mortality in Late Nineteenth-Century America," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number pres91-1, July.
    10. Robert Millward & Frances Bell, 2001. "Infant Mortality in Victorian Britain: The Mother as Medium[Thanks are]," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 54(4), pages 699-733, November.
    11. repec:max:cprpbr:007 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Jonas Ljungberg & Anders Nilsson, 2009. "Human capital and economic growth: Sweden 1870–2000," Cliometrica, Journal of Historical Economics and Econometric History, Association Française de Cliométrie (AFC), vol. 3(1), pages 71-95, January.
    13. Oded Galor, 2011. "Unified Growth Theory," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9477.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Fiaschi, Davide & Fioroni, Tamara, 2019. "Transition to modern growth in Great Britain: The role of technological progress, adult mortality and factor accumulation," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 472-490.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. James Foreman-Peck & Peng Zhou, 2021. "Fertility versus productivity: a model of growth with evolutionary equilibria," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 34(3), pages 1073-1104, July.
    2. Matteo Cervellati & Uwe Sunde, 2015. "The Economic and Demographic Transition, Mortality, and Comparative Development," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(3), pages 189-225, July.
    3. Foreman-Peck, James & Zhou, Peng, 2019. "The Demographic Transition in a Unified Growth Modelof the English Economy," Cardiff Economics Working Papers E2019/8, Cardiff University, Cardiff Business School, Economics Section.
    4. Chakraborty, Shankha & Papageorgiou, Chris & Pérez Sebastián, Fidel, 2010. "Diseases, infection dynamics, and development," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(7), pages 859-872, October.
    5. Gonçola Monteiro & Alvaro Pereira, 2006. "From Growth Spurts to Sustained Growth," Discussion Papers 06/24, Department of Economics, University of York.
    6. Sascha Becker & Francesco Cinnirella & Ludger Woessmann, 2010. "The trade-off between fertility and education: evidence from before the demographic transition," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 15(3), pages 177-204, September.
    7. Nguyen Thang Dao & Julio Dávila & Angela Greulich, 2021. "The education gender gap and the demographic transition in developing countries," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 34(2), pages 431-474, April.
    8. Oded Galor & Marc Klemp, 2014. "The Biocultural Origins of Human Capital Formation," Working Papers 2014-6, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    9. Strulik, Holger & Werner, Katharina, 2014. "Elite education, mass education, and the transition to modern growth," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 205, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    10. Francesco Cinnirella & Marc P. B. Klemp & Jacob L. Weisdorf, 2012. "Malthus in the Bedroom: Birth Spacing as a Preventive Check Mechanism in Pre-Modern England," CESifo Working Paper Series 3936, CESifo.
    11. Lindner, Ines & Strulik, Holger, 2014. "The great divergence: A network approach," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 193, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    12. repec:got:cegedp:140 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Broadberry Stephen, 2012. "Recent Developments in the Theory of Very Long Run Growth: A Historical Appraisal," Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook, De Gruyter, vol. 53(1), pages 277-306, May.
    14. Schäfer, Andreas & Prettner, Klaus, 2016. "The fall and rise of inequality," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145806, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    15. Enrico Spolaore & Romain Wacziarg, 2009. "The Diffusion of Development," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(2), pages 469-529.
    16. Dierk Herzer & Holger Strulik & Sebastian Vollmer, 2012. "The long-run determinants of fertility: one century of demographic change 1900–1999," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 17(4), pages 357-385, December.
    17. Gonçalo Monteiro & Alvaro S. Pereira, 2006. "From Growth Spurts to Sustained Growth: The Nature of Growth and Unified Growth Theory," DEGIT Conference Papers c011_004, DEGIT, Dynamics, Economic Growth, and International Trade.
    18. Sunde, Uwe & Cervellati, Matteo, 2007. "Human Capital, Mortality and Fertility: A Unified Theory of the Economic and Demographic Transition," CEPR Discussion Papers 6384, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    19. David E Bloom & Michael Kuhn & Klaus Prettner, 2020. "The contribution of female health to economic development [The costs of missing the Millennium Development Goal on gender equity]," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 130(630), pages 1650-1677.
    20. Maseland, Robbert, 2021. "Contingent determinants," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    21. Prettner, Klaus & Strulik, Holger, 2020. "Innovation, automation, and inequality: Policy challenges in the race against the machine," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 249-265.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    infant mortality; longevity; germ theory; school hygiene; schooling;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I00 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - General - - - General
    • N33 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - Europe: Pre-1913
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes

    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:hhs:luekhi:0127. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Tobias Karlsson or Benny Carlsson (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dhlunse.html .

    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.