Abstract
When mortality started to decline in the second half of the 19th century, the decline followed a cohort pattern, which is direct evidence for the effect of early-life circumstances on adult mortality. Early studies by Kermack et al. in 1934 suggest that, as far as mortality up to the year 1925 is concerned, the year of birth had more predictive power than the year of death. This was reflected in the general view of public-health policy at the beginning of the 20th century. Mortality at adult ages was considered to be largely influenced by conditions that existed during childhood and in the earliest periods of life. After 1925, the year of birth as compared to the year of death lost much of its predictive power. Period factors became more important.
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© 2004 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Doblhammer, G. (2004). Summary. In: The Late Life Legacy of Very Early Life. Demographic Research Monographs. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-10349-4_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-10349-4_9
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-06046-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-662-10349-4
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