Social mobility and mortality in southern Sweden (1815–1910)

The aim of this research project is to see how intra-social group mobility affected mortality patterns in Sweden; the project covers the transition from a preindustrial to an industrial society. According to previous studies (see Bengtsson 2010; Bengtsson and Van Poppel 2011; Bengtsson and Dribe 2011; Dribe, Helgertz, and Van de Putte 2013), social economical status (SES) did not substantially positively affect life expectancy in the Swedish population; rather, other variables, such as public health measures or education, were key factors. However, a new question has emerged for us: Is it possible that other socio-economic factors, such as intergenerational mobility, affected life expectancy? To answer this, we use a dataset between 1815 and 1910 from the Scanian Economic-Demographic Database (SEDD). The database is based on local population registers for five rural Scanian coast parishes (Hög, Kävlinge, Halmstad, Sireköpinge, and Kågeröd). Analysis is based on three periods according to historical criterion (the preindustrial period: 1815–1869; the early industrial period: 1870–1894; and the first part of the breakthrough of industrialization: 1895–1910). In our study, we define intra-social mobility as the chances of an individual between ages 30 and 49 to experience a change of his SES according to SOCPO codification. SOCPO is composed of a five-category classification scheme. Our main reason for using it is that while it focuses on social power, it is also highly correlated with education and income. In addition, this classification can be used for both rural and industrial societies. Therefore, a Cox proportional hazard model will be applied to estimate the influence of social mobility, controlling for age and other possible determinant variables. We are going to estimate a model for each SOCPO category. This model includes social mobility status (a categorical variable in which 1 is when the individual experiences upward mobility and 0 otherwise), age, sex, year of birth, parish of residence, and position in the household. Thus, after these analyses, we expect to find a significant and positive relationship between social economic mobility and mortality.