The contribution of urbanization to changes in life expectancy in Scotland, 1861–1910

Abstract

During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, urban populations in Europe and North America continued to be afflicted by very high mortality as rapid urbanization and industrialization processes got underway. Here we measure the effect of population redistribution from (low-mortality) rural to (high-mortality) urban areas on changes in Scottish life expectancy at birth from 1861 to 1910. Using vital registration data for that period, we apply a new decomposition method that decomposes changes in life expectancy into the contributions of two main components: (1) changes in mortality; and (2) compositional changes in the population. We find that, besides an urban penalty (higher mortality in urban areas), an urbanization penalty (negative effect of population redistribution to urban areas on survival) existed in Scotland during the study period. In the absence of the urbanization penalty, Scottish life expectancy at birth could have attained higher values by the beginning of the twentieth century.

Keywords:

• urban penalty
• urbanization
• life expectancy
• decomposition methods
• Scottish population history

ORCID

Catalina Torres http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3165-6339

Vladimir Canudas-Romo http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6532-0089

Notes

1 Catalina Torres and Jim Oeppen are at the Interdisciplinary Center on Population Dynamics (CPop), University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark. Vladimir Canudas-Romo is at the School of Demography, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia. Please direct all correspondence to Catalina Torres, J. B. Winsløws Vej 9B, 5000 Odense C, Denmark; or by E-mail: [email protected]

2 The authors thank Michael Anderson for his interesting and insightful comments, which helped to improve the paper, as well as Marius D. Pascariu for his help with technical aspects regarding data handling. The first author wrote parts of this paper while visiting the School of Demography at the Australian National University; she thanks them for their kind disposition. This work was supported by the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Southern Denmark.