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The effect of parental loss on child survival in nineteenth century rural Estonia

ABSTRACT This article explores the impact of parental loss and subsequent remarriage on child survival in the nineteenth century, by drawing on the example of post-emancipation rural Estonia. We utilize a novel, individual-level longitudinal dataset combining data from parish registers, poll-tax lists and migrant listings from 1826 to 1891, to examine: (1) how parental loss effects were differentiated by the gender of the parent; (2) if the loss of parents could be compensated by remarriage; (3) how parental loss effects were felt differently by the socioeconomic status of the household. Our results indicate that the effects of parental loss in this setting played in distinctive ways compared to those found in existing literature examining these processes in historical populations. Consistent with the literature, we find that parental loss effects were stronger when mothers died, but unlike other settings, these effects were felt longer in the Estonian setting and even among children aged 5–9 years. Also, paternal loss was associated with elevated mortality, especially among early childhood. We found no evidence to support the idea that remarriage for mothers improved survival prospects for children. However, there is clear support for improving prospects for children with the remarriage of fathers. When it comes to child health outcomes, stepmothers were not as ‘evil’ as they have been depicted in Estonian folklore, although the resources in families were generally limited and stepchildren might have been discriminated against in the resource allocation within the household.