The cry of “women and children first” during ship disasters turns out to be more of a myth than reality.

 

In honor of the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, Mikael Elinder and Oscar Erixson of Uppsala University studied 18 passenger ship disasters that took place between 1852 and 2011, and the fate of more than 15,000 passengers and crew on the ships.  Their study began with the 1852 sinking of the HMS Birkenhead because it is considered to be the source of the expression “women and children first.” The last known example of a captain actually giving the order that women and children should go first was the sinking of the RMS Lusitania in 1915.

 

In the case of the Titanic, 73% of women were saved, but only 21% of men. However, the Birkenhead and the Titanic turn out to be the only two of the 18 disasters in which women really did have a survival advantage. In 11 cases, men were more likely to survive and in five cases there was no gender difference.

 

Although the gender gap in death rates has narrowed since World War I, overall 34.5% of men survived, but only 17.8% of women.

 

The two most recent cases covered by the study were that of the Philippine SS Princess of the Stars, which ran aground and capsized during a typhoonin 2008, and the Russian cruise ship RV Bulgaria, which sank in the Volga River in 2011. Among the passengers and crew of the Princess of the Stars, 9.8% of the men survived, but only 2.4% of the women. Although the survival rate was higher for the Bulgaria, the survival pattern was almost the same: 60.3% of the men and 26.9% of the women.

-David Wallechinsky

 

Women First Rule 'Ignored In Ship Disasters' - Study (BBC News)