Differential mortality decline in the registration districts of Victorian England and Wales

Mortality decline is multifaceted, conditioned by many things, most notably the physical environment in which the population lives (nutrition, sanitation, medical technology), and the social environment (social homogeneity and solidarity, inequality, and the control people have over their lives). As mortality declines there is a general shift in age at death towards the upper end of the life span, but the specific details of this shift (the pattern) will vary according to the physical and social environment in which the population lives. The present analysis looks at levels and patterns of mortality over time in the Registration Districts of England and Wales in the second half of the nineteenth century, using ESRC data sets compiled by Woods and Shelton (ESRC 3552) and by Friedlander et al. (ESRC 5587). We show that urban living, rather than industrialisation per se created conditions under which mortality in mid-adulthood (ages 35-60) for men and for women was high relative to mortality at younger ages (under 35). We argue that this is indicative of a premature mortality in mid-adult ages whose causes lie in the organisation of social life in nineteenth century cities and not just in the physical and material conditions under which people lived their lives.