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, especially in South and East Asia. Son preference stemmed from economic and cultural factors that have long influenced the perceived value of women in these regions and resulted in millions of “missing girls”. But, were there “missing girls” in historical Europe? Although the conventional narrative argues that there is little evidence for this kind of behaviour, the “missing girls” project has shown that this issue was much more important than previously thought, especially in Southern and Eastern Europe. Greece, where more than 5 per cent of girls went “missing” between 1861 and 1920, constitutes the most dramatic case.
The project has studied child sex ratios obtained from historical censuses. In the absence of gender discrimination, the relative number male and female children is remarkably regular. Comparing, the observed value to the expected (gender-neutral) sex ratio permits assessing the cumulative impact of gender bias in peri-natal, infant and child mortality and, consequently, the importance of potential discriminatory practices. The project has shown how historical sex ratios cannot, however, be directly compared to modern ones because the biological survival advantage of girls was more visible in the high-mortality environments that characterised pre-industrial Europe. Subsequently, boys “naturally” suffered higher mortality rates both in utero and during infancy and early childhood, which leads to lower child sex ratios, even in the presence of gender-discriminatory practices.
Once this issue is taken into account, the project has shown that child sex ratios were abnormally high in some regions, especially in Southern and Eastern Europe (darker dots in the right-hand figure), at least until the early 20th century. This pattern suggests that some sort of gender discrimination was unduly increasing female mortality rates at those ages. A similar picture is found looking at children aged 5-9, which mitigates the possibility that female under-registration explains these patterns. Importantly, the unbalanced sex ratios observed in some regions are not due to random noise, female under-registration or sex-specific migratory flows.
Looking at sex-specific mortality rates also evidences that girls suffered discriminatory practices that unduly reduced their survival chances. The information provided by parish registers provide a finer-grain picture and confirm not only that some families neglected their female infants but also that gender-discriminatory practices continued during infancy and childhood. This behaviour was, however, less visible during the first year of life because, once infants were accepted into the family, breastfeeding protected boys and girls alike. Sex differences in mortality rates, nonetheless, clearly resurfaced when children were weaned. Discriminatory practices during childhood seem to have been part of a generalized cultural system that privileged boys in terms of access to food and/or care. This quantitative evidence is also supported by a large body of qualitative evidence (contemporary accounts, folklore traditions, and anthropological studies) that stresses that girls were neglected due to their inferior status in society.
The “missing girls” project has also studied the factors that explain the variation in the importance of this phenomenon. The intensity of patriarchal values can indeed go a long way in explaining regional differences. In particular, child sex ratios tended to be higher in locations exhibiting patrilocal norms and a low female age at marriage. In addition, findings from several case studies show that discrimination against girls was more intense in large families and among landless and semi-landless families which were subject to harsher economic conditions. Periods of economic stress (i.e. famines, wars, etc.) also exercised pressure on limited resources and accentuated this behaviour.
The “missing girls” project thus indicates that discriminatory practices with lethal consequences for girls constituted a veiled feature of our European past. These discriminatory patterns affecting female mortality early in life disappeared during the first decades of the 20th century, as soon as the demographic transition and other economic, social and cultural changes improved living standards, reduced general mortality rates and undermined son preference due probably to the expanding female labour opportunities brought about by urbanisation and industrialisation. These findings therefore not only challenge the notion that there were no missing girls in historical Europe, but also have important implications for our understanding of the traditional demographic regime and the subsequent transition to lower fertility and mortality rates.
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 had received little attention. If anything, the conventional narrative argues that there is little evidence of gender discrimination resulting in excess female mortality in infancy and childhood in European history.
Relying on an extremely wide range of population censuses and parish registers produced in different European countries between 1750 and 1950, the main aim of this project was twofold. Firstly, tracing the importance of missing girls in Europe between 1750 and 1950 and, consequently, the importance of potential discriminatory practices early in life. Secondly, identifying 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 project team, composed of 2 PhD students and the Principal Investigator, has amassed a huge amount of evidence showing that female neglect during infancy and childhood was affecting girls’ survival chances in Southern and Eastern Europe. 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. Likewise, the project has documented that the lack of female labour opportunities, together with other institutional and cultural constraints like the dowry (or the prevalence of conflicts), militated against the perceived value of girls and therefore affected the status within the household, especially in poor families. Economic constraints, such as famines, exacerbated this behaviour.
Lastly, apart from the effect of discrimination on health outcomes, this project has also enhanced our understanding of how sex-specific mortality rates have evolved in the past, both within utero, right after birth and during infancy and childhood. I has thus expanded the frontier of knowledge in other fields, such as biomedical sciences, demography or development economics. Similarly, this research has also provided key insights on fertility decisions and household behaviour.
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.
