Back to search

FRIHUMSAM-Fri prosj.st. hum og sam

Missing girls in historical Europe

Alternative title: De manglende jentebarna i fortidens Europa

Awarded: NOK 9.8 mill.

Gender discrimination, in the form of sex-selective abortion, female infanticide and the mortal neglect of young girls, constitutes a pervasive feature of many contemporary developing countries that has resulted in millions of "missing girls". Despite the dramatic magnitude of this phenomenon, the historical experience of European countries has received little attention. Although the conventional narrative argues that there is little evidence of gender discrimination resulting in excess female mortality in infancy and childhood, new preliminary evidence suggests that this issue was much more important in 19th-century Europe than previously thought. The aim of this project is therefore twofold. On the one hand, it traces the importance of missing girls in Europe between 1750 and 1950 and, consequently, the importance of potential discriminatory practices early in life. In order to do so, the project relies on an extremely wide range of population censuses and parish registers, both at different levels of regional aggregation and at the household-level. The second aim of the project is to identify which types of families were more likely to be involved in this kind of behaviour, as well as the factors that explain these discriminatory practices, such as structural socio-economic and cultural features or temporary shocks. The first results from the project, comparing sex ratios (the number of boys per hundred girls) and sex-specific mortality rates across European regions, indicate that female neglect during infancy and childhood was especially affecting girls? survival chances in Southern and Eastern Europe. Two additional studies, one focusing on Greece and another one on North-eastern Spain, confirm that these results in those two areas and provide further insights about the mechanisms at play. In this regard, these two case-studies suggest that the dowry and the lack of female labour opportunities militated against the perceived value of girls and therefore affected the status within the household, especially in poor families. The Greek case also highlights how male mass migration also puts girls in danger by worsening their position in the marriage market since parents need to pay larger dowries to secure their marriages. As well as neglecting female babies right after birth, discriminatory practices affecting the way girls were fed or treated when ill, as well as the amount of work which they were entrusted with, resulted in more girls dying during infancy and childhood from the combined effect of undernutrition and illness.

Gender discrimination, in the form of sex-selective abortion, female infanticide and the mortal neglect of young girls, constitutes a pervasive feature of many contemporary developing countries. Despite the dramatic magnitude of the “missing girls” phenomenon, the historical experience of European countries has received little attention. Although the conventional narrative argues that there is little evidence of gender discrimination resulting in excess female mortality in infancy and childhood, new preliminary evidence reconstructing infant and child sex ratios (the number of boys per hundred girls) in 19th-century Europe suggests that this issue was much more important than previously thought. Excess female mortality was not necessarily the result of ill-treatment of young girls. In high-mortality environments as those present in the past, a discrimination on the way girls were fed or treated when ill, as well as the amount of work which they were entrusted with, resulted in more girls dying from the combined effect of undernutrition and illness. The aim of this project is twofold. On the one hand, it traces the importance of missing girls in Europe between 1750 and 1950 by computing sex ratios at birth and at older ages, thus assessing the cumulative impact of gender bias in peri-natal, infant and child mortality and, consequently, the importance of potential discriminatory practices early in life. In order to do so, the project relies on an extremely wide range of historical sources, both at different levels of regional aggregation and at the household-level. The second aim of the project is to assess to what extent unbalanced sex ratios early in life are the result of structural socio-economic features (such as the lack of labour opportunities for women and the prevalence of nuclear households) or temporary shocks (associated with famines, plagues and other mortality crises), as well as analysing the factors that triggered its demise in the early 20th century.

Publications from Cristin

No publications found

No publications found

Funding scheme:

FRIHUMSAM-Fri prosj.st. hum og sam