Parental Income Gradients in Mortality during Childhood and Adolescence: Long-Term Trends across Half a Century Using Norwegian Administrative Data

Miriam Evensen
Søren Klitkou Toksvig, Norwegian Institute of Public Health
Jonas Kinge, Norwegian Institute of Public Health
Simon Øverland, Norwegian Institute of Public Health

Abstract: While mortality among children is low in many Western countries, there is less knowledge about socioeconomic differences in child mortality, and how these differences have evolved. In this study, we use data from the Norwegian Medical Birth Registry, the Cause of Death Registry and income data from Statistics Norway, all available from 1967 and onwards, to examine if declines in mortality are shared equal across children from all parental earnings quintiles. To begin, we find a sharp decline in child mortality in all parental earnings quintiles from 1967 up to the 2010s. Throughout the period, however, children in the lowest parental earnings quintile have an elevated risk of early-life mortality. Further, controlling for additional sociodemographic characteristics of the mother (i.e., age at birth, education, marital status, and immigrant background) only slightly reduces the mortality difference by parental earnings.

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 Presented in Session 14. Infant and Child Mortality