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The 1918 influenza pandemic had not only a massive instant death toll but also lasting effects on its survivors. Several studies have shown that children born in 1919, and thus exposed to the H1N1 virus in utero , experienced worse health and socioeconomic outcomes in older ages than surrounding birth cohorts. This study combines several sources of contemporary statistics with full-population individual-level data for Sweden during 1968–2012 to examine the influence of fetal exposure to the Spanish flu on health, adulthood income, and occupational attainment. For both men and women, fetal exposure resulted in higher morbidity in ages 54–87, as measured by hospitalization. For males, exposure during the second trimester also affected mortality in cancer and heart disease. Overall, the effects on all-cause mortality were modest, with about three months shorter remaining life expectancy for the cohorts exposed during the second trimester. For socioeconomic outcomes, results fail to provide consistent evidence supporting any long-term consequences of fetal exposure. We conclude that although the immediate health effects of exposure to the 1918 pandemic were huge, the long-term effects were modest in size. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s13524-019-00799-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Using data for the period 1968–2001, this article assesses the influence of partner choice and origin country characteristics on the propensity of immigrants to naturalize in Sweden. Marriage to a foreign‐born Swedish citizen increases the naturalization propensity, and its effect increases strongly when the spouse naturalizes during the same year. The analysis suggests that a lower level of civic and political freedom or relative GDP per capita in the individual's country of origin is associated with an elevated probability of naturalization. During the period of study, originating from a country which allows for dual citizenship did not systematically elevate the probability to naturalize; this probability was accentuated, however, if the individual originated from a context characterized by a low degree of civic and political freedom.

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Most research on social and economic mobility follows a two-generation approach, studying the correlations between the socioeconomic status of, for example, fathers and sons. Much less attention has been given to transmissions of status beyond two generations. This issue is of considerable relevance both for our understanding of societal openness and the stability of class structures. In this paper we look at socio-economic mobility across three generations in Sweden in the period 1813-2010. Using longitudinal micro-level data from the Scanian EconomicDemographic Database, we identify three-generation genealogies (grandfather, father, son) that we are able to observe in their prime working ages. We examine the multigenerational transmission of socio-economic status according to three different dimensions; social class, occupational status, and earnings, through estimated lifetime earnings, the HISCLASS scheme, and the HISCAM scale. We find clear associations between grandparental class and occupational status and grandchildren's outcomes, when controlling for the associations between fathers and sons. These associations are remarkably stable over time, and do not appear to be contingent upon close interaction between grandfathers and grandchildren. For earnings, on the other hand, we find no association at all between grandfathers and grandsons, regardless if we are looking at grandparental influence on the paternal or maternal side, or both sides combined

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Does education change people’s lives in a way that delays mortality? Or is education primarily a proxy for unobserved endowments that promote longevity? Most scholars conclude that the former is true, but recent evidence based on Danish twin data calls this conclusion into question. Unfortunately, these potentially field-changing findings—that obtaining additional schooling has no independent effect on survival net of other hard-to-observe characteristics—have not yet been subject to replication outside Scandinavia. In this article, we produce the first U.S.-based estimates of the effects of education on mortality using a representative panel of male twin pairs drawn from linked complete-count census and death records. For comparison purposes, and to shed additional light on the roles that neighborhood, family, and genetic factors play in confounding associations between education and mortality, we also produce parallel estimates of the education-mortality relationship using data on (1) unrelated males who lived in different neighborhoods during childhood, (2) unrelated males who shared the same neighborhood growing up, and (3) non-twin siblings who shared the same family environment but whose genetic endowments vary to a greater degree. We find robust associations between education and mortality across all four samples, although estimates are modestly attenuated among twins and non-twin siblings. These findings—coupled with several robustness checks and sensitivity analyses—support a causal interpretation of the association between education and mortality for cohorts of boys born in the United States in the first part of the twentieth century.

Across today's developed world, there is a clear mortality gradient by socioeconomic status for all ages. It is often taken for granted that this gradient was as strong-or even stronger-in the past when social transfers were rudimentary and health care systems were less developed. Some studies based on cross-sectional data have supported this view, but others based on longitudinal data found that this was not the case. If there was no gradient in the past, when did it emerge? To answer this question, we examine social class differences in adult mortality for men and women in southern Sweden over a 200year period, using unique individual-level register data. We find a systematic class gradient in adult mortality emerging at ages 30-59 only after 1950 for women and after 1970 for men, and in subsequent periods also observable for ages 60-89. Given that the mortality gradient emerged when Sweden transitioned into a modern welfare state with substantial social transfers and a universal health care system, this finding points to lifestyle and psychosocial factors as likely determinants.