Where are the missing girls? Gender discrimination in 19th-century Spain
Introduction
It is now 25 years since Amartya Sen (1990) forcibly drew the world's attention towards the phenomenon of missing girls in the developing world, especially in South and East Asia. Abnormal infant sex ratios pointed to gender discrimination in the form of sex-selective abortion, female infanticide and/or the mortal neglect of young girls (Klasen and Wink, 2002, Das Gupta et al., 2003, Hesketh and Xing, 2006). Traditional son preference was actually being reinforced by the decline in fertility rates and the possibilities that modern techniques opened in terms of determining the gender of the foetus. Despite the journalistic buzz and the considerable research directed towards analysing the situation in developing economies today,1 the historical experience of western countries has either received little attention or considered that these issues had little importance. Lynch (2011) argues, for instance, that there is little evidence for this kind of gender discrimination in pre-industrial Western Europe. According to this author, the European household formation system, together with prevailing ethical and religious values, prevented these same impulses becoming more widespread. Other studies, however, point to the neglect of girls during infancy and childhood in 19th century Europe, especially under adverse economic conditions or where wage labour opportunities for women were scarce (Johansson, 1984, Humphries, 1991, Baten and Murray, 2000, McNay et al., 2005, Horrell and Oxley, 2016).2 Gender discrimination within the household via an unequal intra-family allocation of food, care and workload may therefore have led to excess female mortality early in life.
By relying on data for Western Europe between 1740 and 2010, this paper first provides an estimation of a hypothetical historical sex ratio in absence of gender discrimination. Compared to this benchmark, average (male-to-female) infant and child sex ratios in 19th-century Spain were abnormally high, thus pointing to some sort of unexplained excess female mortality early in life. This behaviour, which is shared by other Southern European countries, mostly disappeared at the turn of the 20th century. However, rather than female infanticide or other type of extreme violence against girls, the excess female mortality found here might be explained by gender discrimination in terms of an unequal allocation of food, care and/or workload within the household. In high-mortality environments, this differential treatment is likely to result in more girls dying from the combined effect of undernutrition and illness.
Apart from the literature on skewed sex ratios and that on gender discriminatory practices in 19th century Europe, this article also relates to a growing wave of studies interested in gender inequality and economic development (Doepke et al., 2012, Eastin and Prakash, 2013, Dilli et al., 2015). The latter claim that gender equality is not only a moral issue but also economically efficient (Dollar et al., 2001, Currie and Moretti, 2003, Klasen and Lamanna, 2009, Alesina et al., 2013).3 A recent World Development Report consequently puts gender equality on the spotlight as a crucial strategy for economic progress in developing countries (World Bank, 2011). Unveiling thus forgotten patterns of gender discrimination becomes of paramount importance.
Section snippets
Literature review
The presence of unbalanced sex ratios in South and East Asia, especially in India and China, has been linked to practices of gender discrimination in early life (Sen, 1990). Different methods to control the number and gender composition of families’ offspring, such as female infanticide and the neglect of young girls, had been long practised by families in these regions (Lynch, 2011, 252–253). Son preference is widely related with economic and cultural factors affecting the perceived relative
Infant and child sex ratios in the long run
Direct evidence of historical gender discrimination at birth or at young ages is unfortunately very difficult to obtain. Due to their very nature, individuals and families tried to hide these practices and thus quantitative or anecdotal evidence is very scarce. Also, given that infant mortality was extremely high, it was relatively easy to disguise infanticide and/or the mortal neglect of infants as natural deaths (Derosas et al., 2004, 158).11
The Spanish experience under the European mirror
Comparing the evolution of sex ratios in Spain to that of other Western European countries further confirms that a pattern of unexplained excess female mortality early in life was already present in late 18th century Spain and did not disappear until the turn of the 20th century, a feature that might be present in other countries of Southern Europe as well. If, as defended by the conventional view, gender discrimination in infancy and childhood was absent from historical Europe (Lynch, 2011),
Concluding remarks
Infant and child sex ratios in Spain were abnormally high in the late 18th century and the 19th century. This pattern of unexplained female excess mortality, a feature shared also by other countries in Southern Europe, disappeared at the turn of the 20th century when sex ratios began to converge with the non-discriminatory trend observed in other countries. The evidence described here suggests that discriminatory practices resulting in excess female mortality early in life may have constituted
Acknowledgments
This paper was presented in Zaragoza, Lisbon, Valencia, Trondheim, Pamplona and Cambridge. We are grateful for the comments received in those occasions. David Reher, Alice Reid, Romola Davenport, Eric Schneider, Fernando Collantes and Vicente Pérez Moreda also read the original draft and provided helpful feedback. This research received financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (projects HAR2015-64076-P and ECO2015-65582).
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