Online Seminar
Sex Ratios and Missing Girls in History
This series of weekly online seminars provides a forum to discuss research on gender discrimination and female excess mortality in historical perspective. Although the seminar is based on the papers that were submitted to the conference that was going to be held in Trondheim (September 15-17, 2020), participation is open (see the CFP below for more info). If you are interested in attending these sessions or presenting your research, please contact Francisco J. Beltrán Tapia.
In order to promote discussion, the presenting author will circulate his/her paper one week in advance. The author will have 5-10 minutes to introduce his/her research at the beginning of the seminar and the floor will then be open to all participants.
Programme
Wednesdays 4-5pm (Oslo time)
Spring 2021
13.01.21 Were Dutch girls missing? Exploring evidence on female infanticide in the Netherlands, 1625-1910. Evelien Walhout (Leiden University).
20.01.21 Gender discrimination in infancy and childhood during the 1891/92 Russian famine. Viktor Malein (University of Southern Denmark) and Francisco J. Beltrán Tapia (NTNU).
27.01.21 Missing girls in Denmark (1787-1911): Evidence from cross-sectional and longitudinal sources. Mads Linnet Perner (University of Copenhagen), Anna Mortensen (University of Copenhagen), Helene Castenbrandt (University of Copenagen/Lund University), Anne Løkke (University of Copenhagen), and Bárbara Revuelta-Eugercios (Danish National Archives)
03.02.21 Neonatal discrimination and excess female mortality in childhood in Spain in the first half of the 20th century, Rebeca Echavarri (Universidad Pública de Navarra)
17.02.21 Infanticide research in Europe from baptismal sex-ratios: Assumptions, methods and possibilities. Gregory Hanlon (Dalhousie University)
24.02.21 Invisible women: Sex ratio, mortality and discrimination in medieval Italy. Irene Barbiera (University of Padova)
03.03.21 Breadwinner, bread maker. Gender division of labor and intrahousehold inequality in 1930s rural Italy, Giulia Mancini (University of Rome Tor Vergata)
10.03.21 The effects of social value in child mortality. The case of El Sagrario parish, Zacatecas, 1835-1845, Miriam A. Camacho Martínez (Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia)
17.03.21 The economic value of girls: Urban and rural gaps in sex child ratio in Colombia during the 20th century, Irina España-Eljaiek (Universidad EAFIT) and María José Fuentes-Vásquez (Universitat de Barcelona) ***Note that the starting time is different: 5-6pm (GMT+2)***
24.03.21 Disease exposure in early life affects female reproduction, Ingrid K. van Dijk (Lund University), Therese Nilsson (Lund University) and Luciana Quaranta (Lund University)
31.03.21 High-value work and the rise of women: The Cotton Revolution and gender equality in China, Melanie Meng Xue (New York University Abu Dhabi)
14.04.21 Missing girls in Albania in 1918: Searching for the causes. Siegfried Gruber (University of Graz).
21.04.21 "Not a bowl of rice, but tender loving care": From aborting girls to preferring daughters in South Korea, Monica Das Gupta (University of Maryland) and Heeran Chun (Jungwon University)
28.04.21 The making of missing girls: Hierarchical sibling effects on child survival in North-eastern China and Japan, 1716-1909. Hao Dong (Peking University), Satomi Kurosu (Reitaku University) and James Z. Lee (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology).
Previous Seminars (Fall 2020)
23.09.20 Sex imbalances and marriage payments in Modern China (1960-1990). Yuanwei Xu (Leibniz University Hannover).
30.09.20 Treating the filles like a roi? Sex differences in child mortality, Quebec 1620-1850. Matthew Curtis (University of California, Davis).
07.10.20 Sex Ratios and missing girls in late-19th-century Europe. Francisco J. Beltrán Tapia (Norwegian University of Science and Technology).
14.10.20 Country of women? Repercussions of the Triple Alliance War in Paraguay. Felipe Valencia Caicedo (Vancouver School of Economics), Laura Schechter (Wisconsin Madison), Jennifer Alix-García (Oregon State) and Siyao Jessica Zhu (World Bank). ***Note the starting time is different: 5-6pm (GMT+2)***
21.10.20 ‘All little girls, the bad luck!’ Sex ratios and gender discrimination in 19th-century Greece. Michail Raftakis (Newcastle University) and Francisco J. Beltrán Tapia (NTNU).
28.10.20 The role of conflict in sex discrimination: The case of missing girls. Anna Minasyan (University of Groningen).
04.11.20 Death, sex and fertility: Female infanticide in rural Spain, 1750-1950. Francisco J. Beltrán Tapia (NTNU) and Francisco Marco-Gracia (University of Zaragoza).
11.11.20 Born in an ill hour. Missing women in 17th and 18tyh century Sri Lanka. Jan Kok (Radboud University) and Fabian Drixler (Yale University).
18.11.20 The missing boys: A distorted sex ratio in South Africa, 1894-2011. Francisco Marco-Gracia (University of Zaragoza) and Johan Fourie (Stellenbosch University).
25.11.20 Matriliny, caste system and gender equality. Samira Sarah Abraham (University of Bologna).
02.12.20 Early Modern witch trials and 19th-century sex ratios. Valeria Rueda (Nottingham University) and Francisco Pino (University of Chile).
09.12.20 Inferring "missing girls" from child sex ratios in European historical census data: A conservative approach. Francisco J. Beltrán Tapia (NTNU), Mikolaj Szoltysek (Hungarian Demographic Research Institute), Bartosz Ogórek (Pedagogical University of Cracow) and Siegfried Gruber (University of Graz).
Description - Call for Papers
It is almost 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 reconstructing infant and child sex ratios (the number of boys per hundred girls) in 19th-century Europe 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 seminar series thus invites contributions addressing whether there were missing girls, and thus discriminatory practices unduly increasing female mortality in infancy and childhood, in historical Europe. In order to establish comparisons with other regions, papers studying non-European countries from a historical perspective are also welcome. We also encourage proposals that attempt to identify the type of families that were more likely to be involved in this kind of behaviour, as well as the factors that explain the potential variation in discriminatory practices. Similarly, this seminar also welcomes contributions that explore the societal effects of these practices, thus contributing to the growing literature on the link between gender inequality and economic development. Lastly, although this event will primarily focus on sex ratios obtained from population censuses or vital statistics, it is also open to proposals using other sources (such as heights, household budgets, foundling hospitals, etc.) that may shed further light on these issues.
Please contact Francisco J. Beltrán Tapia if you are interested in attending these online sessions or presenting your research (francisco.beltran.tapia@ntnu.no).
