Sakari Saaritsa is an Associate Professor of Social History and an Academy Research Fellow at the Department of Economic and Social History, University of Helsinki, Finland. His fellowship entitled “Beyond virtuous circles: A new economic history of human development in Finland, 19th-20th c.” concerns the interrelations between health, demography and economic development in Finland, with gender as a cross-cutting theme. His current research focusses on the empirical analysis of the interactions between economic and social inequality, health shocks, public health interventions and disease avoidance behaviour in specific historical contexts. He is working on papers on the anthropometric impact of the 1918 Finnish civil war on children in Helsinki (with Joël Floris and Tuuli Hurme), the constraints set by living conditions on disease avoidance during a typhoid epidemic in the city of Tampere in 1916 (with Jarmo Peltola), and the ability of nurses and doctors to influence mortality in rural Finland in the 19th and 20th centuries (with Eero Simanainen and Markus Ristola).
Dr. Saaritsa obtained his doctorate at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy in 2008. His research has spanned both qualitative and quantitative social science history, including network analysis of informal solidarity based on oral histories, the economics of gender and intrahousehold allocation in historical household budgets, and deconstructing and reconstructing a Historical Human Development Index for 19th and 20th century Finland. His work has been published in the European Review of Economic History, Cliometrica, Journal of Family History and the Scandinavian Review of Economic History,among others.
Besides academic research, Dr. Saaritsa has worked in development in India, Tanzania, Syria and Mozambique, and has been based in Africa and the Middle East for altogether seven years since 2005. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the European Review of Economic History and an Economics Network Rep for the Social Science History Association.
Selected publications
'Later, smaller, better? Water infrastructure and infant mortality in Finnish cities and towns, 1870-1938.' The History of the Family 2019 (with Jarmo Peltola)
'Deconstructing oral histories of family strategies through record linkage: Comparing interview, tax, welfare and parish sources from early 20th century Finland.' Journal of Family History 44:2 (2019), 159-180.
'Forever gender equal and child friendly? Intrahousehold allocations to health in Finland before the Nordic welfare state.' European Review of Economic History 21 (2017), 159-184.
'Good for girls or bad for boys? Schooling, social inequality and intrahousehold allocation in early twentieth century Finland.' Cliometrica, 10 (2016), 55-98 (With Antti Kaihovaara)
Submitted / under review
'Death around the kitchen table: Inequality, urban habitat and disease avoidance during a typhoid epidemic in a Finnish city, 1916.' (with Jarmo Peltola)
Nurses, doctors and mortality: The effectiveness of early health professionals in rural Finland, 1880-1938. (with Eero Simanainen and Markus Ristola)
Curriculum Vitae
You can read Sakari Saaritsa's CV here: Sakari Saaritsa CV [PDF]