TY  - JOUR
AU  - Costa,Dora L.
TI  - Race and Older Age Mortality: Evidence from Union Army Veterans
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 10902
PY  - 2004
Y2  - November 2004
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10902
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10902.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Dora Costa
Bunche Hall 9272
Department of Economics
UCLA
Box 951477
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1477
Tel: (310) 825-4249
Fax: (310) 825-9528
E-Mail: costa@econ.ucla.edu
AB  - This paper uses the records of the Union Army to compare the older age mortality experience of the first black and white cohorts who reached middle and late ages in the twentieth century. Blacks faced a greater risk of death from all causes, especially in large cities, from infectious and parasitic diseases, from genito-urinary disease, and from heart disease, particularly valvular heart disease. Blacks' greater risk of death was the result both of the worse conditions in which they lived at the time of their deaths and of their lifelong poorer nutritional status and higher incidence of infectious disease. Compared to the 1821-40 black cohort, the 1841-50 black cohort was both under greater stress at a young age and had higher older age mortality rates.
ER  -