Gender and wellbeing in Britain since 1800

Harris, Bernard (2013) Gender and wellbeing in Britain since 1800. In, Family Well-Being: European Perspectives. (Social Indicators Research Series, 49) London, GB. Springer, pp. 203-221. (doi:10.1007/978-94-007-4354-0_10).

Record type: Book Section

Abstract

This chapter explores the relationship between economic and social disadvantage, gender and health. The first section summarises existing knowledge about inequalities in the treatment of males and females in Europe from medieval times onwards. The following section discusses the background to the use of height and other anthropometric indicators as ways of measuring gendered disadvantage. Section three examines the results obtained from a number of different studies of the heights and weights of males and females who were born in different parts of Europe during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The final section examines the relationship between gender and mortality, with particular reference to nineteenth- and twentieth-century Britain. The chapter concludes that there is little evidence to show that differences in the upbringing of girls and boys had a direct effect on either height or mortality, but inequalities in adult lives did have an effect on gender-specific health statistics.

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