Mortality between black and white populations in Rio de Janeiro after abolition

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to analyze the difference in mortality rates among blacks and whites in Rio de Janeiro during the first years of the Brazilian Republic. For that, mortality rates of diseases related to poor housing conditions and access to infrastructure are used as an indicator of economic inequality. Despite the decline in mortality rates in Rio de Janeiro at the beginning of the twentieth century, there was no convergence between the white and black population. In addition, quantitative analysis presents evidence that diseases which disproportionately affected the poor population, such as tuberculosis, indirectly increased the likelihood of death from other diseases, a phenomenon known as Mills-Reincke. This suggests that the mortality rate for the black population may have been previously underestimated.