TY  - JOUR
AU  - Steckel,Richard H.
TI  - Estimating Neonatal Mortality Rates from the Heights of Children:  The Case of American Slaves
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 1628
PY  - 1986
Y2  - October 1986
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w1628
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w1628.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Richard H. Steckel
Department of Economics
Ohio State University
410 Arps Hall, 1945 North High Street
Columbus, OH  43210-1172
Tel: 614/292-5008
Fax: 614/292-3906
E-Mail: steckel.1@osu.edu
AB  - Underenumeration of vital events is a problem familiar topeople who work with historical demographic records. This paper proposes a method for recovering information about neonatal mortality.The approach utilizes average heights of young children to predict the birth weight of American slaves. The results suggest that slave newborns weighed on average about 5.1 pounds, which places them among the poorest populations of developing countries in the mid-twentieth century. The birth weight distribution and a schedule of mortality by birth weight suggest that previous estimates of slave infant mortality are too low. The poor health and stature of children and the relatively large size of slave adults is a pattern of growth and development that is unobserved among poor populations of the twentieth century. Thus slavery may have created an unusual pattern of nutritional resource allocation across ages.
ER  -