Replication Files for The Role of Deaths Following Childbirth in Sex Differences in Mortality

In historical populations, female
death rates often exceed male death rates during the reproductive ages. However, the mortality resulting from
childbearing may not have been the only cause of excess female mortality during
the childbearing ages. This study
expands on work by Roger Schofield and his colleagues in the Cambridge Group by
re-examining mortality after childbirth in the Cambridge Group Family
Reconstitutions. In Part 1, a new
application of event history methods is used to focus on excess mortality in
the months following a birth. Unlike
previous methods, which assume that background mortality of wives and husbands
was the same, we can now compare maternal and paternal mortality. The results indicate that female mortality
was higher than male mortality even when deaths following childbirth are
removed. Part 2 explores the determinants
of maternal deaths in the puerperal period.
Deaths of new mothers rose when their husbands and children were more
likely to die, but the risks of death for new mothers were four or five times
higher than the risks for other married adults.
These results highlight the extraordinary vulnerability of mothers in
the weeks following a birth.

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