5: Life Expectancy
This chapter addresses two main questions. First, whether preindustrial mortality was a function of income. Second, whether the difference in mortality rates explain income differences across societies.
Life Expectancy
While human beings have never reproduced to the maximum of their biological capability, the fertility rates in preindustrial economies were still more than sufficient to replace their parents (7 to 9 children per adult female) - by which logic the population might have tripled to quadrupled with each generation were it not controlled by some means - namely, by a correspondingly high mortality rate.
Life was short in preindustrial societies, In England, life expectancy at birth averaged 37 years; in France at the same time, it was even lower (28 years). This is not to say that there were no elderly people, merely that there were many childhood deaths to balance them out. Some sources suggest that about 15% of the population lived to age 70 or above. However, an even larger percentage of the population died in their first decade of life. In England, it is estimated that 18% of infants that survived birth died in their first year, and only 69% made it to their fifteenth birthday.
A data table is provided considering the morality rates among foraging people in the present time. For example, the Agta people of the Philippines has an average lifespan of 24 years, and while 49% of the population dies before age 15, those who make it past that age can expect to live to 47 years.
There's a brief aside on the difference between life expectancy in rural and urban areas of the time - specifically, that the lifespan in towns and cities before the industrial revolution was lower than the lifespan of those in rural areas. This is speculated to be the result of crowded and unsanitary living conditions. In some instances, the richest cities in the world of 1800 suffered from infant mortality and a shortened life expectancy that was on par with foragers of the present world.
Income and Mortality
The author has found no correlation between income levels and death rates in England from 1540 to 1800. Even "income shocks" such as poor harvests had little apparent impact on mortality. This reflects aggregate data, and differences are apparent on closer inspection. For example, infant mortality levels are substantially different based on income: 62% lower in rich households than in poor ones. Examinations of the wills of that time also show a marked difference between those whose estates amounted to 500 pounds or more, when compared to others whose estates were 25 pounds or less.
The author considers other factors that impact the death rates over time - environment, disease, urbanization, improvements in sanitation and medicine, etc. and suggests it "seems safe to assume" that income is a factor in maintaining a balance between fertility and morality.
Mortality and Living Standards
Living standards varied considerably across preindustrial societies. For example, the living standards of English laborers (in terms of the percentage of income spent on food) were three times as high in 1450 than they were in 1300, and nearly double that of the 1800 levels. The author suggests this to be explained by the variation in mortality rates.
The author considers the impact of the Black Death in euripi, which arrived in 1347 and was estimated to have eliminated 30-50% of the population - though what is not often discussed is that there were plague outbreaks across Europe that periodically struck through the mid-1600s. it's been suggested that the increased living standards in Europe were the result of the plague's thinning of the population, but the author also considers whether it affected all economic classes equally.
That is, given that the plague spread by fleas that lived on rats, the plague would have been most damaging to those sectors of the population who lived in closest proximity to vermin - i.e., the poor. And as such it seems plausible to consider that the plague didn't cause people to have a higher standard of living, but merely killed off the poorest of people, which made the aggregated average higher.
Dutch and English Mortality
In comparing different nations of Europe, it's been found that England and the have considerably higher income than the rest of Europe, and the author pauses to consider the reason this should be so.
It's asserted that during this period, both Dutch and English economies experienced productivity advances, but the author asserts that the rates of these advances were too slow to raise incomes much above subsistence.
Instead, the author looks to urbanization as a driver of both mortality rates and personal income. During this period in history, both the Dutch and English populations migrated from farms to towns and cities at a faster rate than the rest of Europe. Statistics from 1800 suggest that the death rate in the English countryside was about 23 deaths per thousand per year, as compared to 43 in London.
Colonization is also a factor in decreasing the population of England and the Netherlands during this time. Establishing colonies was dangerous work - consider that in the 1600s the Dutch East Indies Company recruited about a million men, half of whom died in service, some of whom left their homeland permanently, and the rest of who spend considerable amounts of time abroad. This not only decreased the number of adult males as domestic consumers, but also as domestic breeders: removing men from the population left women without prospective mates - and the census suggests that by 1749, the ratio of women to men was 1.5 and in 1829, 24% of when aged 40 or older had never married.
Another factor involved in higher mortality rates in northern Europe is that people of this area of the world were, by comparison to those who lived in warmer climates, "a filthy people, living in dirt and squalor [with] low standards of personal and community hygiene." The author elaborates on this for quite some time, adding nothing more regarding economics.
Infanticide
The author provides an observation about British sailors, traders, missionaries, and soldiers exploring the tropics - with the specific note that the death rates among British and French stationed in the Caribbean and Pacific being lower than men of the same age groups in their home countries.
But more to the present point, the missionaries observed a widespread practice of infanticide among islanders. The author admits sources on this practice are likely exaggerated in the interest of justifying the implementation of Christianity, and claims were that two-thirds or more of children born were killed immediately.
Infanticide is not unique to this culture: it's was a common practice for Europeans to abandon unwanted children (to leave a babe in the woods), to sell their children into slavery or forced servitude, or use other methods short of hands-on murder to dispose of unwanted children - not to mention that the preferential treatment given to one child over another generally led to better survival chances for the preferred child (which generally equated to feeding boys while starving girls).
The White Death
The "white death" considers the impact of European explorers and colonists on primitive societies - even in instances where their intentions were benign, they brought with them cholera, measles, smallpox, typhus, and a host of other diseases against which the natives had no immunity.
Historical accounts suggest that the white death was as devastating to the native populations of America and Pacific islands as the black death had been in Europe: a third to half of the population of these tribes were wiped out.
On the other hand, evidence suggests that these tribes experienced the benefit of reduced population (less people means a higher standard of living, though this was often counterbalanced by the loss of resources seized by the settlers.
It's also suggested that Europeans brought a number of tropical diseases back home as well, though there is not much in the way of historical evidence to suggest it had a significant impact.
Economic Stasis
Ultimately, the author is led to the conclusion that Malthusian equilibrium held sway in all societies prior to 1800, and that the world existed in a state of "complete economic stasis" since the expansion of settled agriculture. While one can find evidence of societies that seemed for a time to overcome the problems of balancing population against resources, these "golden" ages of mankind tended to be localized and short-lived.