How Child Mortality Fell: From One in Two to Fewer Than Four in One Hundred

This article is about statistics on the deaths of children. If you have lost a child, these numbers may be hard to read. See Losing a Child for support.

How common was child death in the past?

Very common. Our World in Data pulled together historical studies from many places and periods. It found that across the whole sample, an average of 27% of newborns died in their first year. About half of all children died before reaching adulthood. This held for ancient Rome, medieval England, imperial China, and hunter-gatherer groups.

Sweden has unusually good old records. For 1750 to 1780, they show that 40% of children died before age 15. The figure was about 45% in France and about half in Bavaria. Skeletons from an Iron Age burial site on the Spanish island of Mallorca also pointed to about half. The authors caution that these are snapshots of certain places and times, not a full picture.

What was it like in the United States?

Better than most places, but still hard. Economists Samuel Preston and Michael Haines studied the 1900 census. They found that nearly one in five American children died before age five in the late 19th century, even though the country was rich and literate by the standards of the time.

The CDC reports that at the start of the 20th century, about 100 of every 1,000 infants in the United States died before their first birthday. Six to nine women died of pregnancy-related causes for every 1,000 live births. By 1997, the infant death rate had fallen by more than 90%, to 7.2 per 1,000. The maternal death rate had fallen by almost 99%.

How has it changed worldwide?

Dramatically. Our World in Data estimates that the global share of children who die before 15 fell from about 50% to about 4%, and that it fell in every country. The WHO and the UN’s child mortality group report that the number of deaths among children under five fell from 12.8 million in 1990 to 4.8 million in 2023. The rate fell from 93 to 37 deaths per 1,000 live births, a drop of 59%. In 2023 it was half the rate of the year 2000.

Where do children still die?

The WHO says 47% of deaths among children under five in 2023 were newborns, who died in the first 28 days of life. A baby born in sub-Saharan Africa was 14 times more likely to die in the first month than a baby born in Australia or New Zealand. The UN group says progress is slowing and that these deaths are overwhelmingly preventable.

Why does this matter for how we think about death?

Because it changes the average. Life expectancy figures from the past were low in large part because of the many deaths in childhood. See How the Life Expectancy of Americans Changed Over the Last Century and How Many People Have Ever Lived on Earth?.