Exploring unobserved heterogeneity in perinatal and neonatal mortality risks: The case of an Italian sharecropping community, 1900–39

Abstract

Previous researchers have found that traditional determinants explain only a limited part of the variation in perinatal and infant mortality at the family level. In the study reported in this paper, we explored the factors that make the perinatal/neonatal death risk more heterogeneous across families. We estimated logistic regressions with cluster random effects at the maternal level, using data from the Italian village of Granarolo from 1900 to 1939. We estimated the effects of selected predictors on perinatal/neonatal mortality and unexplained inter-family variation. We found that non-rural skilled and lower-skilled workers experienced higher perinatal and neonatal mortality risks. Unexplained heterogeneity at the maternal level was lower for women living in sharecropper families than for those in landless labourer and non-rural worker families. Unexplained perinatal and neonatal mortality components were also due to socio-economic differences and were not necessarily related only to maternal biological features or shared genetic frailty.

Keywords:

• historical demography
• perinatal and neonatal mortality
• unobserved heterogeneity
• median odds ratio
• intra-class correlation coefficient
• sharecropping contracts

ORCID

Francesco Scalone http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8240-0662

Notes

1 Francesco Scalone is at the Department of Statistical Sciences, University of Bologna, Via Belle Arti, 41, Bologna, BO 40126, Italy. E-mail: [email protected]. Patrizia Agati and Aurora Angeli are at the Department of Statistical Sciences, University of Bologna; Annalisa Donno is at the Department of Statistical Sciences, University of Padova.

2 The authors are grateful to Franco Cazzola, Juan Merlo, and two anonymous referees for their valuable comments and suggestions. The work reported in this paper forms part of the project ‘Filling the gap. A micro analysis of the Italian population from the ancient demographic regime to the first transition—[PRIN 2009]’, funded by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research.