'…a universal outpouring of savagery, imbecility and race hatred… Civilization was about to murder itself.'
—Bruce Duffy on the First World War, in The World as I Found It (1987)
All-cause mortality at age 15-34 years in
England and Wales: 1841-2006
Comment: Female mortality rates at age 15-34 years were higher than male rates in every year from 1841 to 1863 (typically by 3% to 6%), but never again after that.
1849 was a particularly tragic year for young women, as was 1918; hugely tragic years for young men were 1914-18 and 1939-45. Death counts during the two world wars include, according to the Office for National Statistics,
"both civilian and military deaths (even if the death occurred abroad)".
Method: Mortality rates were downloaded from the Human Mortality Database (see www.mortality.org or
www.humanmortality.de)
on 4 December 2009. The plotted lines connect unsmoothed values.
Comment: Female mortality rates at age 15-34 years were higher than male rates in every year from 1841 to 1863 (typically by 3% to 6%), but never again after that. 1849 was a particularly tragic year for young women, as was 1918; hugely tragic years for young men were 1914-18 and 1939-45. Death counts during the two world wars include, according to the Office for National Statistics, "both civilian and military deaths (even if the death occurred abroad)".
Method: Mortality rates were downloaded from the Human Mortality Database (see www.mortality.org or www.humanmortality.de) on 4 December 2009. The plotted lines connect unsmoothed values.