Relative Health

Long-Run Inequalities in Health and Survival Between Families and Across Generations

Worldwide life expectancy has increased strongly over the past decades, but social inequalities in health and mortality are large and increasing. In contrast to trends in socioeconomic inequality and social mobility, long-term developments in inequality in health and mortality have been poorly documented. “Relative Health” aims to quantify the level of inequality in health and mortality from a family perspective 1800-today. Characteristics that affect health and mortality accumulate in families, and thus the level of inequality in health and mortality can be quantified by addressing similarities within families in health and mortality (same-generation relatives) and intergenerational persistence of health and survival (ancestors and descendants). State-of-the-art population reconstructions cover up to 9 generations of relatives (grandparents, parents, children) in Sweden, Netherlands, and US 1800-today and contain lifespan and health information. The project lays the groundwork to generalize these estimates of family health inequality to many contexts with less abundant data sources, using survey data.

Project updates:

  • 2025-02-04: During the spring, I will hire two PhD candidates. Stay tuned for vacancies, which will be published during the spring. One PhD candidate will work on long-term developments in health inequalities using register data, and one will work on comparative questions using survey data. We’re looking for economists, demographers, statisticians, epidemiologists or sociologists.
  • 2025-01-07: On February 13th, I’ll present on the ERC research project (and previous work leading up to it) at CEDAR in Umeå, where some of the data that will be used in the project is curated.