Interacting effects of nutrition and social class differentials on fertility and infant mortality in a pre-industrial population

Bibliographic Data

ID4846077
AuthorsSusan Scott (0000-0003-1414-8228), C J Duncan (0000-0003-4181-2315)
Year2000
Volume54
Issue1
Pages71-87
Publication date2000-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenuePopulation Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0032-4728 • E-ISSN: 1477-4747
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/713779065
PMID11624289
OpenAlexW1991431440
LanguageEN
Citations received13
References cited44

Inadequate nutrition of both the mother and her offspring at each stage of its development - before pregnancy, in the womb, in infancy and during early childhod - played an important role in the patterns of subfertility and infant mortality in a saturated, marginal, preindustrial community. It is suggested that the three social classes had different diets but all were deficient in some essential constituents. Differences in nursing practices in the social groups contributed to differential exogenous mortality and to malnourishment and maternal depletion in the subsistence and (paradoxically) in the elite classes, producing an interacting web of effects and generating a vicious circle from which they could not escape for 150 years. Although the population apparently preferred daughters, the persistent generation effect of low birthweight girls bearing low birthweight daughters probably contributed to the steady-state conditions in this compromised community

Agriculture · Biology · Economic growth · Economics · Elite · Fertility · Infant mortality · Malnutrition · Offspring · Political science · Population · Pregnancy · Sociology · Subsistence agriculture · Virtuous circle and vicious circle · Birth, Development, and Health · Demography · Ecology · Food Security and Health in Diverse Populations · Social Issues and Policies

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