Poverty, Religious Differences and Child Mortality in the Early 20th Century: The Case of Dublin

PWP-CCPR-2016-041

Abstract

Across many cities in the early twentieth century, one in five children died before their fifth birthday. There is much we do not know about how infant and child mortality was reduced, nor why it declined at different rates across populations. This article investigates mortality using data from 13,247 families in Dublin City in the 1900s with a novel approach that incorporates geographic information systems, spatially-derived predictors and multilevel modelling. At this time, Dublin had one of the highest early-age mortality rates in the British Empire. While experts attributed the death of young children to the unhygienic behaviors of indigenous Roman Catholics, others made claims of a “Dublin Holocaust” rooted in economic inequality and the indifference of public authorities toward the health of the lower classes. The findings of this article support the latter argument. Although the rate of infant and child mortality was 50 percent higher for Catholics, these outcomes were strongly linked to poverty and the conditions engendered by residential segregation. This article finds that residential diversity was particularly beneficial for children at higher risk of death. The very low mortality rates among Dublin’s Jewish population are not easily explained by location or economic characteristics.