A demographic framework for understanding social inequalities in bereavement
Publications
Sasson, I., Andersson, L., van Raalte, A., & Alburez-Gutierrez, D. (2026). Social Inequalities in Bereavement across the Life Course: A Study of Four-Generation Kinship Networks in Sweden. Sociological Science (forthcoming)
The death of family members is a near-ubiquitous human experience that profoundly impacts social and psychological wellbeing. Mortality decline in high-income countries has rendered this experience more predictable across the life course, yet family bereavement patterns vary across socioeconomic strata. This study proposes a demographic framework for understanding how the interplay of mortality inequalities and variation in kinship structure shapes inequalities in bereavement. Drawing on life course theory, it conceptualizes the burden of bereavement as a multifaceted phenomenon relating to cumulative exposure to kin deaths (intensity), when these deaths occur during the life course (timing), and whether they follow the generational ordering (anticipation). Using Swedish population register data, we reconstruct four-generation kinship networks around the 1973 birth cohort and estimate the burden of bereavement by education and income. Inequalities in bereavement are decomposed to differences in kin mortality and structure. The findings reveal a socioeconomic gradient in family bereavement, mainly in timing and anticipation effects. Individuals with lower socioeconomic status experience the death of parents, siblings, cousins, and children earlier in life. Disparities in cumulative exposure to bereavement are largely offset by differences in kin structure. This study underscores how demographic processes shape inequalities in bereavement across the life course.
Sasson, Isaac. (2025). Social inequalities as sources of extrinsic mortality: Implications of the two-tiered model. Behavioral & Brain Sciences, 48(1): e119.
Ellis et al.'s two-tiered model compellingly integrates biological and psychosocial pathways through which extrinsic mortality shapes life history strategies. An understated, yet important, implication of their framework is the role of social inequalities in signaling mortality risk–particularly through differential exposure to bereavement–and how it may give rise to distinct life history strategies and outcomes.
Sasson, Isaac. (2025). A New Research Agenda for Social Inequalities in Mortality: Challenges and Open Questions. Population and Development Review, 51(1): 323–360.
Research on mortality inequalities has proliferated in demography in recent decades, documenting disparities between nations and within them across multiple social dimensions. Yet, this literature remains largely descriptive and atheoretical. In this paper, I identify three open questions in need of theoretical development. First, I identify a general shift from gender (and race) based mortality inequalities to class-based inequalities across low-mortality countries. I argue that this shift may be better understood by focusing on the structural determinants of population health, in addition to explanations grounded in individual behavior and risk factors. Second, a growing body of literature has called for moving beyond group differences in life expectancy and adopting the concept of lifespan inequality. However, the drivers of lifespan inequality are not well understood. I argue that a comprehensive framework is needed for clarifying the interplay of nature, nurture, and chance in shaping variability in individual lifespans. Third, I draw attention to the causal role that mortality inequalities may play in driving social change. I argue that differential exposure to death in one's network of social relations may give rise to different modes of thinking, feeling, and acting, and in turn lead to group differences in preferences, actions, and outcomes.