The Neglect of Female Children and Childhood Sex Ratios in Nineteenth-Century America: a Review of the Evidence

Abstract

Antebellum census records show that there were slightly higher than average numbers of male children in the western states and territories of the United States and slightly lower than average numbers of male children in eastern areas. It has been suggested that this imbalance was due to the economically inspired neglect of female children in rural and frontier areas, but this hypothesis does not hold up to close inspection. Better explanations are that more boys were born in, survived childhood in, or moved to western regions.