January 2005, Vol. 11, No. 1

Demography
Bengali Perceptions of Adult Mortality Trends Distorted

Nostalgia for the “good old days,” a familiar sentiment in the developed world, may be common in the developing world as well. Recent research in Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal has revealed that, despite well-documented progress in health and an acknowledged improvement in child mortality rates, many rural Bengalis firmly believe that adult health and survival have declined in recent years. Demographers Sajeda Amin, of the Population Council, and Alaka Malwade Basu, of Cornell University, encountered this attitude while conducting interviews on women’s and men’s motivations for reproduction. They were intrigued and decided to further explore this surprising worldview.

The data analyzed in this study were drawn from a larger study of reproductive change. The researchers conducted 32 focus-group discussions, each with six to ten rural respondents of the same sex and religion, in nine rural districts (four in Bangladesh and five in West Bengal).

Contradictory perceptions
Data from the World Health Organization show that between 1901 and 2000 in Bangladesh and West Bengal, death rates declined and life expectancy increased for every age group. Respondents unanimously agreed that child mortality had fallen dramatically in recent times. They pointed to several reasons for improved child survival: immunization against childhood diseases, antitetanus vaccination for pregnant mothers, the expansion of medical care facilities for women and children, door-to-door service delivery by health care workers, and a move to treat childhood ailments with modern medicine rather than traditional healing practices.

In virtually every interview the researchers conducted, however, they found that the respondents believed that adults today die earlier than they did in their fathers’ and grandfathers’ time. Nearly all the respondents identified a decline in food quality and quantity, along with population growth and moral degeneration, as causes for this drop in longevity.

The respondents stated that because of population growth, less food is available than in the past. Food is also less healthful now because it is produced for the market rather than for subsistence. Hence, it is grown with less care and with poisonous fertilizers and pesticides. Furthermore, the lifestyle required for producing marketable food leads to stress, which in turn leads to illness and such risky behaviors as drug abuse, contended respondents. In the past, interviewees asserted, people were more God-fearing and pious. The past was not just a time of abundant, healthful food; it was also a time when people were “good.”

The researchers point to several possible explanations for this outlook. Memories of famines and disease epidemics could have contributed to a general perception that survival is threatened. Or, the bare subsistence experienced by many respondents could compare poorly with the lifestyle of abundance and indulgence depicted in local folklore and mythology. Improvements in skill with numbers and mathematics may account for some of the feeling that people are not living as long as in the past. Today, if a recently deceased man is known to have been 60 years old at his death, he will be thought to have died young in comparison to his forebears who are believed incorrectly to have lived to be 80, 90, and 100.

Finally, the moral decline often mentioned by respondents suggests that apprehensions about modern lifestyles may explain the perceived increase in adult mortality. Children are too young to be held morally accountable. Therefore, it is justifiable to appreciate the survival advantages that modernity has afforded them. But the moral degeneration of adults can only be endured if it is accompanied by some kind of punishment, such as decreased survival.

Consequences of this outlook
More important than the reasons for this outlook, however, are its possible consequences, says Amin. The perception of an uncertain future could have a variety of influences on people’s behavior. Researchers need to investigate these potential consequences more fully. The contrasting perceptions of the prospects for child and adult survival, for example, may have helped sustain fertility decline. “If more children are expected to survive to maturity, parents can afford to have fewer offspring,” explains Basu. “And if people do not expect to live as long as their forefathers did, they may also be less concerned about having children to support them in their old age.”

This worldview may also influence the way that women and children are treated in society. “On the one hand, if people believe they have little to lose, they may be more permissive with women and children and allow riskier behavior,” says Amin. “On the other hand, if people think the world is more risky and ‘bad,’ they may be more protective and less apt to give women and children freedoms.”

Source
Amin, Sajeda and Alaka Malwade Basu. 2004. “Popular perceptions of emerging influences on mortality and longevity in Bangladesh and West Bengal,” Population Studies 58(3): 357–363. Also issued as Policy Research Division Working Paper no. 186. New York: Population Council. (PDF) (abstract).

Outside funding
The Rockefeller Foundation

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