Gender Inequalities and Sex-Differential Mortality in Pre-War Greece: A Regional Perspective

Vasilis S Gavalas,Pavlos Baltas

doi:10.3390/genealogy6010005

Vasilis S Gavalas, Pavlos Baltas

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy6010005

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Abstract

Previous studies have indicated gender-based discriminatory practices as a result of son preference up to the first half of the 20th century in Greece. Demographic indices calculated from published vital statistics, such as sex ratios at birth and at childhood, were distorted to such an extent that certain scholars suggest that this distortion was due to sex-selective infanticide and neglect of the girls. Although we cannot exclude this possibility, the aim of this paper is to assess to what extent under-registration of female births (in the civil registration system) and under-enumeration of females (in censuses) accounted for the skewed sex ratios and to pinpoint that gender-based discrimination was not the same all over Greece. There were areas in insular Greece, notably the Ionian islands and the Aegean Archipelago, and one area in mainland Greece (Epirus) where demographic indices imply that gender inequalities were less acute. On the other hand, there were areas in mainland Greece, notably in Thessaly, where sex-differential mortality denotes extremely unequal treatment of girls.

Highlights

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The first research question of this paper, that is whether under-registration and underenumeration of females were partially responsible for the skewed sex ratios in Greece during the 1920s, will be answered by a critical review of the existing data of that era, that is the census returns and the published vital statistics
The official publication of the vital statistics of Greece for 1921, trying to explain the unnaturally high sex ratio at birth (116 boys for every 100 girls), clearly stated: “This difference [in the sex ratio at birth] can be explained if we take into consideration that [...] the female births are not registered so regularly as the male ones, because there are laws concerning the military recruitment and other issues that enforce more strictly the obligation of registering the birth of a male” (Ministère de l’ Economie NationaleDirection de la Statistique (1924) Statistique du mouvement de la population pendant l’ année 1921

Summary

Introduction

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. 107) describes in the most eloquent way the object of marriage and its most important function, which was procreation, in the Roman society but in most past societies of the pre-transitional era. The unnaturally virile sex ratios in the two most populous countries of the world, China and India, are examples of discriminatory practices that leave their footprint on demographic indices since the 1980s (Yi et al 1993; UNFPA 2011; Sahni et al 2008). As far as Greece is concerned demographic studies have indicated that gender-based discriminatory practices as a result of son preference existed at least up to the first half of the 20th century (Beltrán Tapia and Raftakis 2021; Gavalas 2015). Regional differences on this issue were so big in the period before WWII that one could hardly believe that the ten Geographical Departments of Greece belonged to the same country

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