Daniel R. Curtis (ESHCC) has recently published two interrelated articles that analyze the impact of epidemic disease outbreaks on women in the early modern period.
The first article, co-authored with Qijun Han, offers demographic evidence from seventeenth-century rural burial registers (pictured below) that suggests that women died at a higher rate than men during epidemics, when considered relative to normal times. This runs counter to expectations of a 'female mortality advantage' based on biological advantages.
In the second paper, a range of historical evidence is assembled to suggest that this may be explained by gender-related differences in exposure to vectors and points of contagion caused by gendered expectations of care provision and other burdens taken on by women during epidemics.
