title: Gender, social norms, and survival in maritime disasters.
abstract: Since the sinking of the Titanic, there has been a widespread belief that the social norm of "women and children first" (WCF) gives women a survival advantage over men in maritime disasters, and that captains and crew members give priority to passengers. We analyze a database of 18 maritime disasters spanning three centuries, covering the fate of over 15,000 individuals of more than 30 nationalities. Our results provide a unique picture of maritime disasters. Women have a distinct survival disadvantage compared with men. Captains and crew survive at a significantly higher rate than passengers. We also find that: the captain has the power to enforce normative behavior; there seems to be no association between duration of a disaster and the impact of social norms; women fare no better when they constitute a small share of the ship's complement; the length of the voyage before the disaster appears to have no impact on women's relative survival rate; the sex gap in survival rates has declined since World War I; and women have a larger disadvantage in British shipwrecks. Taken together, our findings show that human behavior in life-and-death situations is best captured by the expression "every man for himself."
authors: Department of Economics, Uppsala University, SE-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden. mikael.elinder@nek.uu.se
authors: Mikael
authors: M
authors: Elinder
authors: Oscar
authors: O
authors: Erixson
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D004190:Disasters / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D012767:Ships / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012919:Social Behavior; D013534:Survival