This paper shows the effect that the medical expertise of medical practitioners had on the life chances of their children. We focus on infant and early childhood mortality. We reconstructed the life histories of the offspring of a group of around 2800 medical practitioners who were practicing in a high-mortality region in the Netherlands between 1850 and 1922, the period during which infant and child mortality in the Netherlands underwent the largest changes. The survival of their offspring is compared with that of a random sample of children from the Historical Sample of the Netherlands. Multilevel hazard analysis, using Cox proportional hazards models with shared frailty, is applied to study the effect of belonging to the medical profession on survival, in relation to the level of infant mortality in the regions where children were born. Within the group of medical practitioners, attention is paid to differences in children’s survival according to the level of medical knowledge of the fathers. Our statistical analyses show that the offspring of medical practitioners as a whole did have better survival prospects than children born to families without a father with a medical background. When medical practitioners had effective medical knowledge, measured by the period of graduation and the highest level of medical training reached, the positive effects on the survival of their children were even stronger.

本文展示了医生的医疗专业知识对其孩子的生活机会的影响。我们关注婴儿和幼儿死亡率。我们重建了 1850 年至 1922 年间在荷兰高死亡率地区执业的约 2800 名医生的后代的生活史，这一时期荷兰的婴儿和儿童死亡率发生了最大的变化。他们后代的存活率与来自荷兰历史样本的随机样本儿童的存活率进行了比较。使用具有共同脆弱性的 Cox 比例风险模型进行多级风险分析，用于研究医疗职业对生存的影响，以及儿童出生地区婴儿死亡率水平的影响。在医生群体中，根据父亲的医学知识水平，人们会关注儿童生存率的差异。我们的统计分析表明，作为一个整体，医生的后代确实比父亲没有医学背景的家庭所生的孩子有更好的生存前景。当医生拥有有效的医学知识（以毕业时间和达到的最高医疗培训水平来衡量）时，对孩子生存的积极影响就更大。我们的统计分析表明，作为一个整体，医生的后代确实比父亲没有医学背景的家庭所生的孩子有更好的生存前景。当医生拥有有效的医学知识（以毕业时间和达到的最高医疗培训水平来衡量）时，对孩子生存的积极影响就更大。我们的统计分析表明，作为一个整体，医生的后代确实比父亲没有医学背景的家庭所生的孩子有更好的生存前景。当医生拥有有效的医学知识（以毕业时间和达到的最高医疗培训水平来衡量）时，对孩子生存的积极影响就更大。