Article ID: CBB001200225

The Decline in Infant Death Rates, 1878--1913: The Role of Early Sickness Insurance Programs (2010)

unapi

The causes of the decline in mortality rates experienced by Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are still debated.1 One understudied cause that contributed to the decline in mortality is the expansion of sickness insurance. C. R. Winegarden and John E. Murray have studied the role of sickness insurance on overall mortality, but the effect of sickness insurance on infant outcomes has largely been ignored and thought to have been a second-order effect. 2 Many European countries passed sickness insurance legislation between 1878 and 1913. Sickness insurance provided women with confinement (maternity) benefits which improved access to medical care, provided supplemental income to new mothers, and promoted proper infant care practices. The empirical analysis in this article shows that the expansion of sickness insurance coverage in European nations by 1 percent was related to a decline of nearly one infant death per 1000 infants at the margin. This decline in the infant death rate accounts for 18 to 35 percent of the entire decline in the crude death rate attributed to sickness insurance.

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Authors & Contributors
Porter, Margaret
Kupfer, Charles D.
Ferretti, Lucia
Cecala, Rebecca K.
Stevens, Rosemary A.
Stern, Alexandra Minna
Concepts
Public health
Infant health services
Vital statistics
Social welfare
Health care
Infant care
Time Periods
20th century
19th century
20th century, early
18th century
17th century
16th century
Places
Great Britain
United States
Canada
London (England)
Saskatchewan (Canada)
Uruguay
Institutions
National Health Service (Great Britain)
American Medical Association
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