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Age, Sickness, and Longevity in the Late Nineteenth and the Early Twentieth Centuries

Evidence from the Hampshire Friendly Society

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Martin Gorsky ,
Bernard Harris  and
Andrew Hinde
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Abstract

We examine the relationship between age, sickness, and longevity among men who were members of the Hampshire Friendly Society (HFS) in southern England during the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. The HFS insured its members against sickness, death, and old age, keeping detailed records of the claims for sick pay submitted by its members from 1868 onward. From 1892 onward these records included information about the cause of the sickness for which compensation was paid. We can therefore use this information to construct individual “sickness biographies” for men who joined the society during this period. This article uses these sickness histories to address two questions. The first concerns the relationship between the age of the society’s members and the nature of the claims they submitted. We find that both the incidence and the duration of periods of sickness increased with age. Older men experienced longer periods of sickness both because they experienced different types of sickness and because it took them longer to recover from the same illnesses as those suffered by younger men. The second question is whether sickness in early adulthood was associated with increased mortality. We find that repeated bouts of sickness, as revealed by the number of claims made for sick pay, at ages under 50 years were associated with an increased risk of death at ages over 50 years.

Type
Articles
Information
Social Science History , Volume 30 , Issue 4: The Persistence of the Health Insurance Dilemma , Winter 2006 , pp. 571 - 600
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 2006 

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Footnotes

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Earlier versions of this articlewere presented at the European Social Science HistoryConference, Berlin, March 2004, and at the Second International Conference on Economics and Human Biology,Munich, June 2004. We are grateful for comments made by the participants at both gatherings. The editor of this special issue and an anonymous referee made valuable suggestions that have greatly improved the article. Address correspondence to Andrew Hinde, Southampton Statistical Sciences Research Institute, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, United Kingdom, email: [email protected] or [email protected].

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