IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/osloec/2004_006.html

An egalitarian disease? Socioeconomic status and individual survival of the Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1918-19 in the Norwegian capital of Kristiania

Author

Listed:
  • Mamelund, Svenn-Erik

    (Dept. of Economics, University of Oslo)

Abstract

The Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1918-19 was one of the most devastating diseases in history, killing perhaps as many as 50-100 million people worldwide. In addition to the high death toll and the high general lethality, the disease had a peculiar feature: the largest increase in death rates occurred among those between the age of 20 and 40 as opposed to the very young and the elderly, which is the more typical pattern of influenza epidemics. Furthermore, it appeared that it was the most robust population groups and the previously healthy that had highest mortality rates. Much of the literature favors the view that Spanish Influenza was class neutral with respect to mortality. This paper uses individual level data and applies Cox regressions to test the hypothesis that the blue-collar working class in 1918 suffered higher death rates from Spanish Influenza than the bourgeois and white-collar middle class in two parishes of the Norwegian capital of Kristiania (renamed Oslo in 1924).

Suggested Citation

  • Mamelund, Svenn-Erik, 2004. "An egalitarian disease? Socioeconomic status and individual survival of the Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1918-19 in the Norwegian capital of Kristiania," Memorandum 06/2004, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:osloec:2004_006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sv.uio.no/econ/english/research/unpublished-works/working-papers/pdf-files/2004/Memo-06-2004.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mamelund, Svenn-Erik, 2003. "Can the Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1918 explain the baby-boom of 1920 in neutral Norway?," Memorandum 01/2003, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    2. Fogel, Robert William, 1997. "New findings on secular trends in nutrition and mortality: Some implications for population theory," Handbook of Population and Family Economics, in: M. R. Rosenzweig & Stark, O. (ed.), Handbook of Population and Family Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 9, pages 433-481, Elsevier.
    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. Mamelund, Svenn-Erik, 2006. "A socially neutral disease? Individual social class, household wealth and mortality from Spanish influenza in two socially contrasting parishes in Kristiania 1918-19," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(4), pages 923-940, February.

    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. 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.
    2. Himanshu Sekhar, Rout, 2006. "Linkages Between Income, Education And Health: Case Of Rural Orissa," MPRA Paper 6519, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Olivier Morand, 2004. "Economic growth, longevity and the epidemiological transition," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 5(2), pages 166-174, May.
    4. David Cutler & Angus Deaton & Adriana Lleras-Muney, 2006. "The Determinants of Mortality," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(3), pages 97-120, Summer.
    5. Husain, Muhammad Jami, 2009. "Contribution of health to economic development: a survey and overview," Economics Discussion Papers 2009-40, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    6. Gerard van den Berg & Gabriele Doblhammer-Reiter & Kaare Christensen, 2011. "Being Born Under Adverse Economic Conditions Leads to a Higher Cardiovascular Mortality Rate Later in Life: Evidence Based on Individuals Born at Different Stages of the Business Cycle," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 48(2), pages 507-530, May.
    7. David E. Bloom & David Canning & Michael Moore, 2007. "A Theory of Retirement," PGDA Working Papers 2607, Program on the Global Demography of Aging.
    8. Husain, Muhammad Jami, 2010. "Contribution of health to economic development: A survey and overview," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 4, pages 1-52.
    9. Hendrik Jürges & Eberhard Kruk & Steffen Reinhold, 2013. "The effect of compulsory schooling on health—evidence from biomarkers," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(2), pages 645-672, April.
    10. Mamelund, Svenn-Erik, 2006. "A socially neutral disease? Individual social class, household wealth and mortality from Spanish influenza in two socially contrasting parishes in Kristiania 1918-19," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(4), pages 923-940, February.
    11. Masset, Edoardo & White, Howard, 2003. "Infant and Child Mortality in Andhra Pradesh: Analysing changes over time and between states," MPRA Paper 11206, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Knutsson, Daniel, 2025. "The effect of water filtration on cholera mortality," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    13. Mattoscio Nicola & Colantonio Emiliano & Carlei Vittorio & Furia Donatella, 2009. "Eu Integration, Health Standards And Economic Development," Annals of Faculty of Economics, University of Oradea, Faculty of Economics, vol. 2(1), pages 424-430, May.
    14. Nils‐Petter Lagerlöf, 2003. "Mortality and Early Growth in England, France and Sweden," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 105(3), pages 419-440, September.
    15. Germano Mwabu, 2002. "Working Paper 38 - Health Development in Africa," Working Paper Series 172, African Development Bank.
    16. Sattinger, Michael, 2011. "The Markov consumption problem," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(4-5), pages 409-416.
    17. Bruno Chiarini, 2010. "The economic consequences of population and urbanization growth in Italy: from the 13th century to 1900. A discussion on the Malthusian dynamics," Discussion Papers 2_2010, D.E.S. (Department of Economic Studies), University of Naples "Parthenope", Italy.
    18. Oded Galor & David N. Weil, 1998. "Population, Technology, and Growth: From the Malthusian Regime to the Demographic Transition and Beyond," NBER Working Papers 6811, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. David E. Bloom & David Canning, 2004. "Global demographic change : dimensions and economic significance," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, issue Aug, pages 9-56.
    20. Dalgaard, Carl-Johan & Strulik, Holger, 2007. "A Bioeconomic Foundation of the Malthusian Equilibrium: Body Size and Population Size in the Long-Run," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-373, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • J10 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - 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:hhs:osloec:2004_006. 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: Mari Strønstad Øverås (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/souiono.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.