Female Excess Mortality among Older Adults in Historical Italy

Mary Alice Ernish, Johns Hopkins University

Currently in developed countries, males have greater mortality rates relative to females at every age level. However, this pattern of excess male mortality across the lifespan is a recent phenomenon, which only began to emerge for developed countries since the 1930s. During the 19th century, excess female mortality in one form or another existed in every European country and in the United States and varied by period, place and age. National and province-level vital statistics and population census data are used in this analysis to investigate regional variation in age and sex-specific mortality differentials in older adults (aged 50+) in Italy during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Preliminary analysis suggests the presence of excess female mortality among older adults in historical Italy and that this pattern of sex mortality differentials existed for age, period, and geographic region even after controlling for a variety of socioeconomic and demographic factors.