Abstract: The project explores the discrimination practices against the female population of the Russian Empire at the end of the 19th century. In particular, we investigate whether the meager harvest that caused economic deprivation and starvation of thousands of rural inhabitants triggered gender discrimination towards newborns and young girls. Using data from the Russian Census of 1897 and applying the difference in difference estimation approach, we find that the mortality shock was not translated into a relatively lower sex ratio (ratio of male to female population) among exposed cohorts. This evidence suggests that the biological survival bias of girls, widely documented in the literature, could be counterbalanced by some social intervention. We also find that exposure to Famine leads to relatively higher sex ratios among exposed cohorts with a more significant presence of religious minorities where historically socioeconomic status of women was relatively low (e.g., Muslims). The link is robust to the inclusion of the district and cohort fixed effects. Further research will test the environmental, economic, and cultural explanations of the observed patterns in the data.
The meeting will be held online via Zoom.