This study uses data from a random sample of births in the Netherlands during the period 1850-1922 to examine the relationships between social class, social mobility and mortality at middle and old age. Population registers and personal cards covering the period from 1850 to 2004 for all Dutch...

In the early postwar period, improvements in life expectancy in many Western countries made health authorities, health scientists and politicians believe that social differences in mortality converged. The assumption was that inequality, when measured as death rates, was on steady decline,...