This paper reconstructs infant and child sex ratios, the number of boys per hundred girls, in Europe circa 1880. Contrary to previous interpretations arguing that there is little evidence of gender discrimination resulting in excess female mortality in infancy and childhood, the results suggest...

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....

Relying on longitudinal micro data from a Spanish rural region between 1750 and 1950, this article evidences that families mortally neglected a significant fraction of their female babies. On the one hand, baptism records exhibit exceptionally high sex ratios at birth, especially during the 19th...