10 October Seminar: Democratization and Excess COVID-19 Mortality in the EU and the CIS

masv on 7. October 2024

For the fourth Pandemics & Society Seminar of our Fall 2024 series we are pleased to welcome Umit Tleshova (Charles University). The seminar will be held on Thursday, 10 October at the normal time (1600 CEST). More information about our speaker and the presentation is below. You can sign up for email notifications about the seminar series, including the Zoom details, here.

Abstract

In the midst of the challenges brought about by COVID-19, it is crucial to evaluate excess mortality to effectively respond to public health needs. This research explores how mortality data has been censored in 18 countries that were previously under communist regimes until the 1990s, with a specific focus on the impact of democratization. The Democracy Index (DI) was used as a parameter, building upon previous studies that have linked democratic governance with mortality outcomes. By computing and analyzing excess mortality from January 2020 to the end of 2021, compared to the previous five years, we utilized common databases such as the World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations World Population Prospects (UN WPP), and the World Mortality Dataset (WMD). We observed an interplay between DI and the undercount ratio of COVID-19 deaths within several independent states; however, our findings did not reveal any correlation between excess mortality and DI levels.

About the Speaker

Umit Tleshova is a PhD Student at the Department of Demography and Geodemography in the Faculty of Science, Charles University, Prague, Czechia. She conducted research on COVID-19 excess mortality data sources and their connection to political regimes among 17 countries in cooperation with Prof. Doc. RNDr. Dagmar Dzúrová and Dr. Klára Hulíková Tesárková. She obtained a Master’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Bolton, dedicating her field research to the socio-economic challenges faced by women in Nairobi, Kenya. She focuses on global population challenges and is currently dedicating her doctoral research to studying Covid-19 mortality data in countries with a communist history in the EU and CIS.

3 October Seminar: Wages and inequality in the Middle Ages

masv on 30. September 2024

For the third Pandemics & Society Seminar of our Fall 2024 series we are pleased to welcome Spike Gibbs (Universität Mannheim). The seminar will be held on Thursday, 3 October at the normal time (1600 CEST). More information about our speaker and the presentation is below. You can sign up for email notifications about the seminar series, including the Zoom details, here.

Abstract

The in-kind wages paid to pre-industrial workers have recently received new attention by economic historians interested in understanding long-term living standards. However, in-kind wages are difficult to quantify leading historians to either ignore them entirely or use proxies such as consumer price index baskets of goods to capture their value. In this paper, we take a different approach by using a new dataset to directly measure the quantity, composition, and value of grain wages paid to late medieval agricultural workers across the period 1270 to 1440. This allows us to precisely measure remuneration, and the value of its cash and in-kind components, at the level of the individual worker. We use this information to evaluate the mechanisms which led to changes in labour remuneration in the period following the Black Death and differences in the effects between workers. Our results clearly demonstrate that the wages of the average adult male worker rose in the wake of the Plague, but only after a thirty-year hiatus, showing that changes in labour relations, rather than worker productivity in and of itself, drove the ‘golden age of labour’. However, preliminary investigations of variation between workers suggest a more complex story: while in the aggregate wages appear to have been similar across different manors held by the same estate, inequality in the wages paid between different types of worker were persistent, suggesting a rigidity in occupational hierarchies that was not overturned by the Plague. 

The paper is a collaboration with Jordan Claridge (LSE) and Vincent Delabastita (Radboud)

About the Speaker

Spike Gibbs is Junior Professor for the Economic History of the Middle Ages at the University of Mannheim. His research addresses topics such as local officeholding, agricultural wages, the economics of lordship, and the social networks of village communities.

19 September Seminar: How Germs Shaped History

masv on 16. September 2024

For the second Pandemics & Society Seminar of our Fall 2024 series we are pleased to welcome Jonathan Kennedy (Queen Mary, University of London). The seminar will be held on Thursday, 19 September at the normal time (1600 CEST). More information about our speaker and the presentation is below. You can sign up for email notifications about the seminar series, including the Zoom details, here.

Abstract

Disciplines such as history are anthropocentric, viewing the natural world as a stage on which humans, whether “Great Men” or struggling classes, play out their roles. This talk brings together research from a range of disciplines – microbiology, anthropology, and sociology; genomics, classics, and economics – to explore the role that pathogens have played in the past. We will take a brisk ride through the recent history of our species, to see how infectious diseases played critical roles in many of the great social, political and economic transformations, from the emergence of Christianity and Islam as world religions, to the transition from feudalism to capitalism.

About the Speaker

Jonathan Kennedy is a Reader in Politics and Global Health at Queen Mary University of London. He has a PhD in sociology from the University of Cambridge. His first book, Pathogenesis: How Germs Made History, was a Sunday Times Science Book of the Year and a national bestseller in the USA. It has been translated into 12 languages, including Norwegian. 

5 September Seminar: What can we learn from historical pandemics?

masv on 3. September 2024

For the first Pandemics & Society Seminar of our Fall 2024 series, we are pleased to welcome Áine Doran (Ulster University). The seminar will be held on Thursday, 5 September at the normal time (1600 CEST). More information about our speaker and the presentation is below. You can sign up for email notifications about the seminar series, including the Zoom details, here.

The paper has been published in Social Science & Medicine and is available here.

Abstract

What are the insights from historical pandemics for policymaking today? We carry out a systematic review of the literature on the impact of pandemics that occurred since the Industrial Revolution and prior to Covid-19. Our literature searches were conducted between June 2020 and September 2023, with the final review encompassing 169 research papers selected for their relevance to understanding either the demographic or economic impact of pandemics. We include literature from across disciplines to maximise our knowledge base, finding many relevant articles in journals which would not normally be on the radar of social scientists. Our review identifies two gaps in the literature: (1) the need to study pandemics and their effects more collectively rather than looking at them in isolation; and (2) the need for more study of pandemics besides 1918 Spanish Influenza, especially milder pandemic episodes. These gaps are a consequence of academics working in silos, failing to draw on the skills and knowledge offered by other disciplines. Synthesising existing knowledge on pandemics in one place provides a basis upon which to identify the lessons in preparing for future catastrophic disease events.   

About the Speaker

Áine Doran (PhD, QUB) is a Lecturer in Economics at Ulster University. Her research focuses on Economic History, primarily in the areas of demography, living standards and development. Her PhD is entitled ‘Pandemics, Poverty and Population: Essays in Economic History’. One part of the thesis studies 19th century Ireland with the aim of better understanding the context and causes of the Irish Famine. The second area of study is understanding pandemics which have occurred in the last 100 years and both the economic and demographic impact they had. Along with academic conferences, Áine has spoken about her work at both public events and government departments.

Announcing the Fall 2024 Pandemics & Society Seminar Series

masv on 29. August 2024

We are pleased to release the schedule for our Fall 2024 seminar series. As in previous series, the seminar will be held via Zoom at 16.00 Central European Time on Thursdays.

To access the Zoom meetings, please join our mailing list here.

5 September
What can we learn from historical pandemics? A systematic review of the literature
Áine Doran, Ulster University

19 September
How germs shaped history
Jonathan Kennedy, Queen Mary University of London

3 October
Wages and inequality in the Middle Ages: Moving beyond the average
Spike Gibbs, Universität Mannheim

10 October
Democracy, Mortality, and COVID-19: A Cross-Regional Comparison of Excess Mortality Data in Post-Communist Countries of the EU and CIS
Umit Tleshova, Charles University

31 October
Covid-19 is (Probably) Not an Exogenous Shock or Valid Instrument
Jeff Clement, Augsburg University
**Note that Central European Summer Time ends on 27 October**

7 November
Projecting the long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on U.S. population structure
Andrea Tilstra, University of Oxford

14 November
Racialized Epidemiologies: The Case of Black Americans During the Great Influenza, 1918–1920
Paul Skäbe, Universität Leipzig

21 November
Excess Mortality in Mainland China after the End of the “Zero COVID” Policy: A Systematic Review of Literature
Isaac Fung, Georgia Southern University

5 December
The Impact of the First Wave of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic on the French and German Armies on the Western Front of the First World War
Srijita Pal, University of Southern California

23 May Seminar: Forgotten Pandemic? Revisiting the “Spanish” Influenza on the First World War’s Macedonian Front 

masv on 22. May 2024

For the penultimate Pandemics & Society Seminar of our Spring 2024 series, we are pleased to welcome Christos-Stavros Konstantopoulos (McGill University). The seminar will be held on Thursday, 23 May at the normal time (1600 CET). More information about our speaker and the presentation is below. You can sign up for email notifications about the seminar series, including the Zoom details, here.

Abstract

Although interest in the history of the “Spanish” influenza pandemic has risen over the past two decades, its connection with the First World War has not yet been fully explored. To the degree that is has been the object of study, it has mostly been approached through the lens of the Western Front. In this presentation, we will talk about the influenza pandemic on the Great War’s Macedonian Front, which is the subject of a larger PhD research project comparing the influenza’s impact on the British, French, and Greek troops fighting on that front. We will start by discussing why that front is of interest to scholars researching the pandemic. Subsequently, based on Hellenic Army data drawn from reports of the army’s medical officers, we will touch on three preliminary findings: a)that the temporal pattern of the pandemic in 1918 differed from that of the Western Front, with the influenza reaching Macedonia more in a single long wave instead of two distinct waves; b)that the scale of influenza-related mortality on the Macedonia front dwarfed mortality from diseases that have captured most of the interest of medical officers at the time as well as of later historians, such as malaria, typhus, or dysentery; and c)that epidemic and endemic diseases, and in particular influenza and malaria, seem to have been correlated rather than distinct.  

About the Speaker

Christos-Stavros Konstantopoulos is a first-year PhD student at McGill University, researching the “Spanish” influenza pandemic on the Macedonian Front of the First World War, in particular comparing how it affected the British, French, and Greek troops fighting on that front. He previously studied History at the University of Cambridge and Comparative Political Science at the University of Oxford, before serving in the Hellenic Army’s History Directorate. He has worked for the SCHOOLPOL project of the University of Oxford, researching the evolution of education policies in OECD countries since the Second World War. His broader interests include the history of health, population, education, and development. 

2 May Seminar: Socioeconomic mortality differences during the Great Influenza in Spain

masv on 29. April 2024

For the fifth Pandemics & Society Seminar of our Spring 2024 series, we are pleased to welcome Sergi Basco (Universitat Barcelona). The seminar will be held on Thursday, 2 May at the normal time (1600 CET). More information about our speaker and the presentation is below. You can sign up for email notifications about the seminar series, including the Zoom details, here.

Abstract (and link to paper)

Despite being one of the deadliest viruses in history, there is limited information on the socioeconomic factors that affected mortality rates during the Great Influenza Pandemic. In this study, we use occupation-province level data to investigate the relationship between influenza excess mortality rates and occupation-related status in Spain. We obtain three main results. Firstly, individuals in low-income occupations experienced the highest excess mortality, pointing to a notable income gradient. Secondly, professions that involved more social interaction were associated with a higher excess of mortality, regardless of income. Finally, we observe a substantial rural mortality penalty, even after controlling for income-related occupational groups. Based on this evidence, it seems that the high number of deaths was caused by not self-isolating. Some individuals did not quarantine themselves because they could not afford to miss work. In rural areas, home confinement was likely more limited because their inhabitants did not have immediate access to information about the pandemic or fully understand its impact due to their limited experience handling influenza outbreaks.

About the Speaker

Sergi Basco is Associate Professor of Economics (with tenure) in Universitat Barcelona. He received his PhD in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). His work focusses on understanding the effects of globalization and economic crises. His academic work has been published, among others, in Journal of Economic Growth, Journal of International Economics, European Economic Review, Journal of Economic History, Explorations in Economic History, World Development, and Economics and Human Biology. He has published the books Housing Bubbles: Origins and Consequences (Winner of the Catalan Society of Economics Prize 2020) and Pandemics, Economics and Inequality: Lessons from the Spanish Flu (joint with J. Domènech and J. Rosés).