Dynamics and change of 19th century intergenerational death clustering: an international comparative analysis.

Recent studies show that infant mortality is heavily concentrated in a limited number of families, so-called high-risk families, not only in past western European populations, but also in contemporary developing regions. This phenomenon, called death clustering, raises fascinating questions, such as on (the evolution of) infant mortality and its consequences for the overall evolution of mortality. A so far understudied component of death clustering is its evolution over time. It is the aim of this project to fill this gap in the literature by putting death clustering in a long term perspective. This is an important step in the better understanding of infant mortality decline. This is not a linear process, but is prone to ill-understood accelerations, delays and fluctuations. By applying the perspective of death clustering on the mortality transition theory, the focus is shifted towards the role of (changing) family characteristics. Special attention will be paid to intergenerational patterns of infant mortality: the correlation of infants survival chances and their genealogical history of infant mortality. This project will focus on three settings, differing on both the social and the cultural level: Antwerp, northern Sweden, and Iceland. The unequal distribution of infant mortality between families will be analyzed using recent, innovative statistical techniques, such as multilevel survival analysis and Bayesian simulation.

Keywords:Death clustering, Infant mortality, Historical demography, Mortality decline, Demographic transition theory, Intergenerational transmission, Diffusion processes

Disciplines:Other social sciences