Missing Girls in Historical Europe

Missing Girls in Historical Europe

Research Project funded by the Research Council of Norway and hosted by the Department of Modern History and Society at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology

It has been 30 years since Amartya Sen forcibly drew the world’s attention towards the phenomenon of missing girls in the developing world, especially in South and East Asia. Unbalanced sex ratios pointed to gender discrimination in the form of sex-selective abortion, female infanticide and/or the mortal neglect of young girls. Son preference stemmed from economic and cultural factors that have long influenced the perceived relative value of women in those regions and resulted in millions of “missing girls”, an issue that has received considerable attention from both the media and academia.

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, preliminary evidence suggests that this issue might have been more important than previously thought, especially (but not exclusively) in Southern and Eastern Europe. It should be noted that 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, could have resulted in more girls dying from the combined effect of undernutrition and illness.

This research project thus studies whether discriminatory practices unduly increased female mortality during infancy and childhood in historical Europe (c.1700-1950). More specifically, the project seeks to (1) trace the importance of missing girls, and thus the extent of discriminatory practices; (2) identify the type of families that were more likely to be involved in this kind of behaviour; and (3) highlight the factors that explain the variation in discriminatory practices across regions and over time.

As well as qualitative sources shedding light on how families treated their children, this project relies on sex ratios obtained from population counts and vital statistics. Other sources providing information on foundling hospitals, heights, or household budgets, among others, can also be employed.

Irish, Spanish and Greek families in late-19th century and early-20th century. Source: Irish Times, Anteayer Indumentaria and Polly Thanailaki.

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse