Recent regional studies on adult mortality and socio-economic status inSweden are merged and also completed with analyses from country-widecensuses in strategic time periods, with the purpose to find out whetherthe locally drawn conclusions about a changing social gradient in mortalitystill holds.The answer is firmly positive: While the upper classes have definiteadvantage in modern time (after, say, the 1960s), the reverse situationholds during the nineteenth and early twentieth century for men. Women, onthe other hand, seem to follow the expected pattern of a positive socialgradient through the last 200 years.