Health and Vulnerable Men Sweden: From Traditional Farming Industrialisation

Abstract

The article analyses the relationship between social transition and health in late eighteenth and nineteenth century Sweden with special regard to gender. The transition of the agrarian society in early 19th century was characterised by declining mortality for children and women, while adult men experienced stagnating or even rising death rates, leading to a substantial male mortality hump. Adult men appear to have been more vulnerable to the negative effects of the structural economic change. Alcohol was an obvious mediator of the socio-economic health effects. Industrialisation in last decades of the 19th century was followed by a narrowing gender gap in mortality. Some important causes of the improvement of health, particularly among adult men, were the emergence of a materially better and more stable society in combination with the new popular movements providing the working class with new ideologies and interpretations of the world. In conclusion, the results suggest that specific gender roles often have tended to make men more vulnerable to changes of working conditions and less stable societies.