child mortality

[drachor]

Can anyone point me to a source discussing child mortality in the empire in the 1st century A.D. Is there anything on the internet? What percentage of children could one expect to live to adulthood?

[Primus Pilus]

Can anyone point me to a source discussing child mortality in the empire in the 1st century A.D. Is there anything on the internet? What percentage of children could one expect to live to adulthood?

 

Andrew Riggsby (Univ. of Texas) in his paper on "Roman life expectancy" claims the number to be 319/1000. I can't find a complete version of the text online, but if it's important enough, you could try to contact him via his faculty page (email included) http://www.utexas.edu/depts/classics/facul...by/Riggsby.html

[drachor]

Andrew Riggsby (Univ. of Texas) in his paper on "Roman life expectancy" claims the number to be 319/1000. I can't find a complete version of the text online, but if it's important enough, you could try to contact him via his faculty page (email included) http://www.utexas.edu/depts/classics/facul...by/Riggsby.html

 

Thanks I found the link to his "paper" at http://www.utexas.edu/depts/classics/documents/Life.html

[Maty]

My own research on this produced a mortality curve that looked like a stuka pulling out of a dive-bombing run. Basically, infant mortality was substantial. Thereafter if disease or war/childbirth was going to get you, this would happen before you were 40, and if you made it to 40 you were practically unkillable. (As far as can be discerned, the mortality rate among over 40's in the first century AD was more or less equivalent to 20th century Europe, since a lot of weeding out happened beforehand). I was at a seminar where this topic came up in front of a *very* well qualified audience, and after a long discussion they concluded that a woman needed to have seven children for the replacement rate to remain stable. Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi had 13 children of whom three survived.

 

As a very rough rule of thumb, you can assume two out of five will die in their first year, one in the next four, another before age twenty. Hopkins 'death and renewal' has a lot of material here, and see his "On the Probable Age Structure of the Roman Population" in Population Studies 1966. Also if you look at Richard Saller's work you will find more to go on (he also reviewed Scheidel in Population Studies 1999, according to my notes). also someone called Durand did a study on mortality in the American Journal of Sociology 1959-60, though his work was based on tombstones, and many neonatals were buried casually without them. You'll also find useful material in "Discovering the Roman Family: Studies in Roman Social History" by Keith R. Bradley

[Kosmo]

The short piece mentions

"Infant Mortality rate = 319/1000

Stationary population requires GRR = 2.543 (i.e. about 5 children per mother, live-born)" but I have no ideea how they came to this numbers...

[Primus Pilus]

The short piece mentions

"Infant Mortality rate = 319/1000

Stationary population requires GRR = 2.543 (i.e. about 5 children per mother, live-born)" but I have no ideea how they came to this numbers...

 

 

Indeed, I am under the impression that the chart is only a small piece of the puzzle and that there is a larger text as support of the data. If so inclined to use said information, I would contact the author for confirmation of methodology.

 

In any case, 32% mortality would seem a reasonable assessment of birth/infant mortality considering Maty's considerably larger estimation of mortality rates from infancy through the age of adolescence/young adulthood.