The social patterning of child mortality: the importance of social class, gender, family structure, immigrant status and population density

Abstract

Which structural dimensions are most important for life chances have been the subject of debate. In this study, which uses data from the Swedish Census-linked Deaths registry for the period 1980-86, structural differences in child mortality are analysed. The structural dimensions focused on are social class, gender, family structure, immigrant status and population density. When all structural dimensions were controlled for simultaneously, only social class and gender influenced disease mortality. Of these two structural dimensions, social class seemed to be the most important in terms of producing the greatest differences. For mortality due to accidents, on the other hand, all dimensions proved to be important. The mortality risk was higher for children in single-parent households, for children whose parents were bom outside Sweden, and for children living in the least densely populated areas. The greatest differences in mortahty from accidents, however, were attributable to gender, followed by social class. Furthermore, mortality differences by the father's, the mother's and the family's class position, detennined by the dominance method of class assignment, were compared. The class position of both parents was independently associated with child mortality but the family's position seemed to be the better discriminator in terms of class variation. The implications of these flndings are that death risks during the whole childhood period are socially structured in Sweden and that sodal class is still a stmctural dimension of great importance.