Estimating death differentials to measure the labeling impact of disability: A case study of past populations in Sweden

This study follows about 500 disabled individuals over life to examine their survival chances in past society and in comparison to a control cohort of non-disabled people. The aim is to detect whether those with disabilities were markedly stigmatized and thus faced difficulties in life, which we in accordance with the labeling theme of secondary deviance assume would be indicated by high levels of mortality. We make use of Sweden’s 19th-century parish registers (digitized by the Demographic Data Base, Umeå University) to identify people who the ministers defined as disabled and to construct the control cohort. Then we employ bi-variate analyses and run multivariate regression models. The statistical results suggest that disability significantly jeopardized the survival of individuals but was not the only key to their mortality, because gender determined the survival of disabled, too. Disability limited men’s life expectancy more evidently than the women’s. Our findings are rare in providing statistical evidence of disabled individuals’ experiences beyond institutional life and because we seek to measure the level of labeling in their life. The death differentials demonstrate that the disabled constituted a disadvantaged but heterogeneous collection of people whose demography and pathways must be further researched.