Mother's death and child survival: the case of early Quebec.
The aim of this paper is to account for the effect of mother's death on child survival in a historical population. Using comprehensive data on the early French Canadian population of Quebec, evidence is provided for a higher risk of dying for motherless children that remains significant over all childhood and long after the death of the mother. The specific effect of the loss of maternal care was estimated by comparing mortality before and after mother's death, furnishing a means to control for family heterogeneity. No differential in investment between genders was detected before age 3, but older girls suffered a three-fold higher susceptibility to mother's death than their male counterparts. This suggests that grown-up girls assuming the responsibilities of the missing mother had a lower chance of survival.
Pavard
Samuel
S
Laboratoire d'anthropologie biologique, CNRS FRE 2292/Musée de l'Homme, Paris, France.
Gagnon
Alain
A
Desjardins
Bertrand
B
Heyer
Evelyne
E
D000367:Age Factors; D002648:Child; D046688:Child Mortality; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005191:Family Characteristics; D005260:Female; D049670:History, 17th Century; D049671:History, 18th Century; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008423:Maternal Age; D008428:Maternal Mortality; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D011792:Quebec