IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/exehis/v46y2009i2p241-252.html

The in-hospital mortality rates of slaves and freemen: Evidence from Touro Infirmary, New Orleans, Louisiana, 1855-1860

Author

Listed:
  • Pritchett, Jonathan
  • Yun, Myeong-Su

Abstract

Using a rich sample of admission records from New Orleans Touro Infirmary, we examine the in-hospital mortality risk of free and enslaved patients. Despite a higher mortality rate in the general population, slaves were significantly less likely to die in the hospital than the whites. We analyze the determinants of in-hospital mortality at Touro using Oaxaca-type decomposition to aggregate our regression results. After controlling for differences in characteristics and maladies, we find that much of the mortality gap remains unexplained. In conclusion, we propose an alternative explanation for the mortality gap based on the selective hospital admission of slaves.

Suggested Citation

  • Pritchett, Jonathan & Yun, Myeong-Su, 2009. "The in-hospital mortality rates of slaves and freemen: Evidence from Touro Infirmary, New Orleans, Louisiana, 1855-1860," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 241-252, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:exehis:v:46:y:2009:i:2:p:241-252
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014-4983(08)00036-3
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ham, John C & Svejnar, Jan & Terrell, Katherine, 1998. "Unemployment and the Social Safety Net during Transitions to a Market Economy: Evidence from the Czech and Slovak Republics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(5), pages 1117-1142, December.
    2. Myeong-Su Yun, 2005. "A Simple Solution to the Identification Problem in Detailed Wage Decompositions," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 43(4), pages 766-772, October.
    3. Meeker, Edward, 1976. "Mortality trends of southern blacks, 1850-1910: Some preliminary findings," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 13-42, January.
    4. Tunali, Insan & Pritchett, Jonathan B, 1997. "Cox Regression with Alternative Concepts of Waiting Time: The New Orleans Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1853," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(1), pages 1-25, Jan.-Feb..
    5. Ronald L. Oaxaca & Michael R. Ransom, 1999. "Identification in Detailed Wage Decompositions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(1), pages 154-157, February.
    6. Abowd, John M & Killingsworth, Mark R, 1984. "Do Minority-White Unemployment Differences Really Exist?," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 2(1), pages 64-72, January.
    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. Daniel A. Powers & Hirotoshi Yoshioka & Myeong-Su Yun, 2011. "mvdcmp: Multivariate decomposition for nonlinear response models," Stata Journal, StataCorp LLC, vol. 11(4), pages 556-576, December.
    2. Logan, Trevon D. & Pritchett, Jonathan B., 2018. "On the marital status of U. S. slaves: Evidence from Touro Infirmary, New Orleans, Louisiana," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 50-63.
    3. Green, Tiffany L. & Hamilton, Tod G., 2013. "Beyond black and white: Color and mortality in post-reconstruction era North Carolina," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 148-159.

    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. Yun, Myeong-Su, 2005. "Normalized Equation and Decomposition Analysis: Computation and Inference," IZA Discussion Papers 1822, IZA Network @ LISER.
    2. Ira N. Gang & Kunal Sen & Myeong-Su Yun, 2006. "Poverty in Rural India: Ethnicity and Caste," Departmental Working Papers 200634, Rutgers University, Department of Economics.
    3. Carlos Gradin, 2009. "Why is Poverty So High Among Afro-Brazilians? A Decomposition Analysis of the Racial Poverty Gap," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(9), pages 1426-1452.
    4. Bowblis, John R. & Yun, Myeong-Su, 2010. "Racial and Ethnic Disparities in the Use of Drug Therapy," IZA Discussion Papers 4853, IZA Network @ LISER.
    5. Axel Heitmueller, 2004. "Job Mobility In Britain: Are The Scots Different? Evidence From The Bhps," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 51(3), pages 329-358, August.
    6. Carl Lin, 2016. "How Do Immigrants From Taiwan Fare In The U.S. Labor Market?," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 61(05), pages 1-38, December.
    7. Adam Pilny, 2017. "Explaining Differentials in Subsidy Levels Among Hospital Ownership Types in Germany," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(5), pages 566-581, May.
    8. Behroz Baraghoshi & Cihan Bilginsoy, 2013. "Interstate Variations in Private Sector Union Density in the U.S," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 34(2), pages 180-202, June.
    9. Stephen Morris & Rosalind Goudie & Matt Sutton & Hugh Gravelle & Robert Elliott & Arne Risa Hole & Ada Ma & Bonnie Sibbald & Diane Skåtun, 2011. "Determinants of general practitioners' wages in England," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(2), pages 147-160, February.
    10. Ira N. Gang & Robert C. Stuart & Myeong-Su Yun, 2006. "Wage Growth and Inequality Change During Rapid Economic Transition," Departmental Working Papers 200631, Rutgers University, Department of Economics.
    11. Blunch, Niels-Hugo & Datta Gupta, Nabanita, 2020. "Mothers’ health knowledge gap for children with diarrhea: A decomposition analysis across caste and religion in India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    12. Terence Chai Cheng & Anthony Scott & Sung‐Hee Jeon & Guyonne Kalb & John Humphreys & Catherine Joyce, 2012. "What Factors Influence The Earnings Of General Practitioners And Medical Specialists? Evidence From The Medicine In Australia: Balancing Employment And Life Survey," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(11), pages 1300-1317, November.
    13. Bryan, Mark & Bryce, Andrew & Rice, Nigel & Roberts, Jennifer & Sechel, Cristina, 2022. "Exploring mental health disability gaps in the labour market: the UK experience during COVID-19," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    14. Kritkorn Nawakitphaitoon & Xuan Chen & Yuhao Ge, 2016. "State and Non-state Earnings Differentials over Time in China’s Urban Labor Market: Evidence from the Urban Household Survey (1994–2007)," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 37(3), pages 287-316, September.
    15. Dina Shatnawi & Ronald Oaxaca & Michael Ransom, 2014. "Movin’ on up: Hierarchical occupational segmentation and gender wage gaps," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 12(3), pages 315-338, September.
    16. Liu, Hong & Fang, Hai & Zhao, Zhong, 2013. "Urban–rural disparities of child health and nutritional status in China from 1989 to 2006," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 294-309.
    17. Peter Huber & Ulrike Huemer, 2015. "Gender Differences in Lifelong Learning: An Empirical Analysis of the Impact of Marriage and Children," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 29(1), pages 32-51, March.
    18. Hansen, Henrik & Rand, John & Win, Ngu Wah, 2022. "The gender wage gap in Myanmar: Adding insult to injury?," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    19. GOH, Chor-ching & LUO, Xubei & ZHU, Nong, 2009. "Income growth, inequality and poverty reduction: A case study of eight provinces in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 485-496, September.
    20. Sonja C. Kassenboehmer & Mathias G. Sinning, 2014. "Distributional Changes in the Gender Wage Gap," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 67(2), pages 335-361, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;

    JEL classification:

    • N31 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General

    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:eee:exehis:v:46:y:2009:i:2:p:241-252. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622830 .

    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.