Mortality of children and parental disadvantage

• Peng Yu
• Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs

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28 August 2007 There is plenty of evidence for intergenerational transmission of disadvantage. However, mortality, as the most significant adverse outcome of children, is not well explored, especially in Australia. Lack of appropriate data is one of the main reasons.

To tackle this issue, this paper uses a unique administrative dataset of the Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, which contains almost a whole birth cohort of Australian children. It finds that mortality of children is significantly correlated with several indicators of parental disadvantage, including Indigenous status, low income, long duration on income support, teenage motherhood, disability, and living in remote or socio-economically disadvantaged areas. The paper discusses how some measures of disadvantage, such as unemployment or income support reliance for young adults used in isolation, may underestimate the extent of intergenerational transmission of disadvantage, because premature deaths prevent some children, especially those from disadvantaged families, from being included in the sample.