2 ms·

I think most of the change in death rate is improved medicine (and maybe wealth too – plenty of people in the US in the 50s were very poor by modern standards)

I think most of the change in death rate is improved medicine (and maybe wealth too – plenty of people in the US in the 50s were very poor by modern standards) rather than parents knowing about many potentially harms. (Maybe I’m wrong? Happy to be corrected here)

lurk2 1y ago
This is the conclusion I lean towards, but anecdotally one of my grandparents knew something like 3 or 4 kids who died before the age of 15, all in preventable accidents. Disease got at least a few more. It’s possibly just a coincidence but hearing the stories of how inattentive people could be to their children back then, I’ve always suspected current helicopter parenting norms must have accounted for at least some of the decline. There’s been a similar shift with people letting their dogs roam free. When I was a kid I remember hearing stories about a dog getting run over by a car every year. I rarely hear these stories anymore because people usually keep their dogs supervised or in a fenced yard. I don’t have any hard data, but I suspect there’s something to these cultural shifts.
Tuna-Fish 1y ago
Vaccinations and better antibiotics reduced death rates a lot, but in 1950 accidents were still 30% of the death rate for children, killing 5 times as many children than die today for all causes.
- lurk2 1y ago
  Do you have a source for that?
- AnthonyMouse 1y ago
  The death rate for children aged 5-14 is is 14.7 per 100,000, i.e. 0.0147%. That's basically zero and five times that much is still basically zero. By comparison, the death rate for the 35-44 age group was 237.3 per 100,000. Also, the most common type of accidental death is car accidents. So is even that difference from kids not getting to play outside anymore, or is it radial tires and crumple zones?

2 ms·

I think most of the change in death rate is improved medicine (and maybe wealth too – plenty of people in the US in the 50s were very poor by modern standards)

by dan-robertson 1y ago

lurk2 1y ago
This is the conclusion I lean towards, but anecdotally one of my grandparents knew something like 3 or 4 kids who died before the age of 15, all in preventable accidents. Disease got at least a few more. It’s possibly just a coincidence but hearing the stories of how inattentive people could be to their children back then, I’ve always suspected current helicopter parenting norms must have accounted for at least some of the decline. There’s been a similar shift with people letting their dogs roam free. When I was a kid I remember hearing stories about a dog getting run over by a car every year. I rarely hear these stories anymore because people usually keep their dogs supervised or in a fenced yard. I don’t have any hard data, but I suspect there’s something to these cultural shifts.
Tuna-Fish 1y ago
Vaccinations and better antibiotics reduced death rates a lot, but in 1950 accidents were still 30% of the death rate for children, killing 5 times as many children than die today for all causes.
- lurk2 1y ago
  Do you have a source for that?
- AnthonyMouse 1y ago
  The death rate for children aged 5-14 is is 14.7 per 100,000, i.e. 0.0147%. That's basically zero and five times that much is still basically zero. By comparison, the death rate for the 35-44 age group was 237.3 per 100,000. Also, the most common type of accidental death is car accidents. So is even that difference from kids not getting to play outside anymore, or is it radial tires and crumple zones?