‘All little girls, the bad luck!’ Sex ratios and gender discrimination in 19th-century Greece

Francisco Beltrán Tapia and Michail Raftakis
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Michail Raftakis: Newcastle University

No 172, Working Papers from European Historical Economics Society (EHES)

Abstract: Based on anecdotal evidence on girls’ inferior status and the analysis of sex ratios, this article argues that son preference resulted in gender discriminatory practices that unduly increased female mortality rates in infancy and childhood in Greece during the late-19th and early-20th century. The relative number of boys and girls was extremely high early in life and female under-registration alone is not likely to explain this result. Female infanticide and/or the mortal neglect of infant girls played therefore a more important role than previously acknowledged. Likewise, sex ratios increased as children grew older, thus suggesting that parents continued to treat boys and girls differently throughout childhood. Lastly, the analysis of province-level information shows that economic and social conditions influenced how the value of girls was perceived in different contexts, thus aggravating or mitigating female excess mortality.

Keywords: Sex ratios; Infant and child mortality; Gender discrimination; Health (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I14 I15 J13 J16 N33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 20 pages
Date: 2019-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gen and nep-his
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hes:wpaper:0172

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