How Occupation Affects the Mortality Rate of a Population?

It is now well recognised that man’s surroundings and the occupation from which he earns his livelihood have an important bearing on his health habits status.

The study of the relationship between a man’s occupation and the risk of mortality is important from many points of view. A man’s occupation is related to his education; his income depends on his occupation. Both income and education may influence his diet, his housing conditions and habits.

As it is not feasible to study individually the effects of all these factors on mortality, researchers have often taken one factor as an index of all the others. The factor most studied in this context is occupation, or social status based on occupation.

In England and Wales, systematic studies since 1851, have been conducted on mortality differentials based on occupational class and social class.

An analysis of the data for five social classes covered in these studies indicates that, in 1921-23 and 1930-32, mortality rates for males aged 20 to 64 years rose progressively from social class I (professional) to social class V (unskilled).

By 1950, however, a change was observed in these relationships, and males in social class II (intermediate occupations) were found to have the lowest rates, while social class IV (partly skilled occupations), however, continued, as before, to have a substantially higher mortality than the other classes.

It is obvious that persons working in different occupations are exposed to different types of risks. For instance, while workers in coal mines are more likely to suffer from tuberculosis of the lungs and lung cancer, those in sedentary occupations face the risk of heart diseases.

The educational attainment of parents especially that of mothers, has been found to have a significant relationship with the levels of infant mortality. In Hungary, a strong inverse relationship was noted between the educational status of parents and the levels of infant mortality.

For infants of mothers who had never attended school, this rate was 95 per thousand births, while for those with mothers who had thirteen or more years of schooling, it was 27.

In Greater Bombay, it was observed in 1966 that the levels of infant mortality were highly influenced by the literacy and educational attainment of the mothers.

The infant mortality rate was the highest for infant of illiterate mothers and the lowest for infants whose mothers had either passed the matriculation examination or had higher educations.