There is more myth than gold in the mythical golden era

I find this graph strangely provocative and instructive.

# Infant mortality rates of both sexes by father’s social class in England and Wales, 1930/2–2001 – Max Roser3

Does class matter in real world outcomes?

Looking at this graph the answer is Absolutely; Less Than Before; and Not Really, depending on your perspective.

Does Class Matter?

Absolutely! - In 1930, infant mortality for a child of an unskilled worker was two and a half times that of the professional class, with 80 poor children dying for every 32 children of the upper class. Seventy years later, children of unskilled workers are still dying at nearly twice the rate of upper class children.

Less Than Before - Yes, seventy years later, the mortality ratio is still nearly twice as high (1.9X) but that still represents a thirty percent improvement in the respective mortality ratios.

Not Really - From the perspective of absolute outcomes, the improvement is night and day. The upper class child mortality rate in 1932 was more than four times that of the unskilled laborer child of 2001. While the ratio of unskilled class to laboring class has dropped to 1.9X (7.4/3.8), the absolute reduction in deaths is huge. A more than ten-fold improvement for children of unskilled laborers and a nearly ten-fold improvement for the upper class.

We have a habit of looking back at mythical golden ages but when you examine the numbers, there is more myth than there is gold. Any parent would choose to be in the unskilled manual laborer class today than in the professional class of 1930. You are far less likely to lose a child. Virtually everyone would still prefer to be upper class today than unskilled laborer class today but the absolute consequences of that difference are far, far less than they were in 1930.