Long-Term Mortality Effects of Early-Life Famine Exposure : The Hungry Forties in Estonia

The paper investigates whether exposure to a famine in the Russian Tsarist Province of Livland in 1844–1846 in early life negatively affected survival at later ages, using individual data from two rural parishes. We follow 18 birth cohorts born between 1834–1852 (in all, 5,318 individuals) until age 75. We address the question of long-term effects on mortality by applying survival regression techniques. We find that relative to individuals born after the period of crisis, there were no significant differences in survival from age 21 to 75. By looking at the social groups separately, our analysis suggests that exposure to famine in infancy and early childhood increased mortality risks between ages 1 to 4 and 55 to 75 for landless peasants, but for the better-off groups the effect was constrained to the ages from 1 to 20. For farmer’s children we observe a cross-over from higher to lower relative mortality as the exposed individuals aged