"We found a lower survival rate for women on British ships than on ships of other nations"
Sinking the Titanic 'women and children first' myth
Forget "women and children first" – it might have worked on the Titanic, but it's usually every man for himself, says Mikael Elinder
Where does the notion arise that, when a ship sinks, women and children come first?
It appears to have started when the HMS Birkenhead ran aground off South Africa in 1852, but the notion became widespread after the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. The captain explicitly issued an order for women and children to be saved first. As a result, the survival rate for women was three times higher than for men.
This idea of chivalry at sea has gained mythological status, but you're the first person to examine if it's true for many other maritime disasters. What did you find?
We went through a list of over 100 major maritime disasters spanning three centuries to see if we could find data on survival rates of men and women. We ended up with data on 18 shipwrecks, involving 15,000 passengers. In contrast to the Titanic, we found that the survival rate for men is basically double that for women. We only have data on children for a limited number of shipwrecks, but it is evident that they have really bad survival prospects: just 15 per cent.
What about the noble ideal that the captain and crew put the passengers first and go down with the ship?
What we can see clearly is that the crew were more likely to survive than passengers, with 61 per cent surviving, compared to around 37 per cent of male passengers. On average, the captain was more likely to survive than the passengers.
So this notion of chivalry at sea is a myth?
Yes. It really is every man for himself.
(continued)
