Illegitimacy, Infant Feeding Practices and Infant Survival in Sweden 1750–1950 A Regional Analysis

he general decline of mortality in Europe after 1750 constitutes one of the great puzzles of historical demography. We now have a vast amount of information on various aspects of the decline, although much of it has come into being in an ad hoc fashion. Some ten years ago Reher and Schofield pointed out in their review of the status of research on the European mortality decline, “it would only be a small exaggeration to say that our understanding of historical mortality patterns, and of their causes and implications, is still in its infancy.” After a decade of further research their statement is still valid. In the context of the Swedish demographic transition, infant mortality played a key role in the general decline in mortality. Deaths among children under one year of age contributed to almost 30 percent of the total number of deaths in the middle of the eighteenth century. By the middle of the nineteenth century the proportion of infant deaths had decreased to 22 percent and by the end of the century to 17 percent. By the middle of the twentieth century infant deaths constituted only 2.7 percent of all deaths. The decline of mortality observed in the model is thus, to a large extent, the result of the long and steady decrease in infant mortality (Figure 1). Infant mortality in Sweden during the second half of the eighteenth century fluctuated around 200 deaths per 1000 live births (200‰). After the first decade of the nineteenth century infant mortality declined steadily reaching 150 per thousand by the middle of the century. Rates dipped below 100 per thousand at the beginning of twentieth century and now constitute less than five infant deaths per thousand live births. This gradual decline was atypical in a European context, where child mortality often played a more central role.