Helene Castenbrandt
Researcher
Differences in Health : The Influence of Gender and Institutional Settings on Sickness Claims in Gothenburg, Sweden (1898–1950)
Author
Summary, in English
Sickness funds information has given conflicting evidence on the evolution of morbidity during the mortality decline. Evidence on increased morbidity has been explained by an actual increase of morbidity, a cultural inflation of morbidity or changing institutional settings, however, morbidity rates have also been shown to be stable over time when age composition of members is controlled for. Most previous studies have been confined to data on men; however, in an earlier article, Castenbrandt found large gender differences in historical sick leave by using national statistics on both men and women. To move forward, this article aims to analyse trends in sickness claims during the mortality decline in the early twentieth century using individual level data from Swedish sickness funds covering the period 1898–1950. Concretely, we investigate gender differences in sickness claims (incidence and duration) and how institutional settings (member composition and fund-specific regulations) affected the sick leave patterns.
Department/s
- Department of Economic History
Publishing year
2020
Language
English
Pages
1259-1281
Publication/Series
Social History of Medicine
Volume
33
Issue
4
Document type
Journal article
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Topic
- Economic History
Keywords
- sickness funds
- friendly societies
- morbidity
- gender
- sicknessickness funds, friendly societies, morbidity, gender, sickness claimss claims
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 0951-631X