Helena Haage

Gendered death risks among disabled individuals in Sweden: A case study of the 19th-century Sundsvall region

This study follows around 500 disabled individuals over their lifespan to examine their risks of dying in 19th-century society, in comparison to a reference group of non-disabled people. The aim is to detect whether people, due to their disability, had a higher probability of meeting an untimely death. We use Sweden’s 19th-century parish registers to identify people the ministers defined as disabled, and to construct a reference group of individuals who were not affected by these disabilities. By combining the deviance theories from sociology studies with demographic sources and statistical methods, we achieve new insight into how life developed for disabled people in past societies. The results suggest that disability significantly jeopardized the survival of individuals, particularly men, but also that the type of disability had an impact. Altogether, we can demonstrate that the disabled constituted a disadvantaged but heterogeneous group of people whose demography and life courses must be further researched.

Deaf and unwanted? Marriage characteristics of deaf people in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Belgium: a comparative and cross-regional approach

In this article, the marriage characteristics of deaf men and women born in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Belgium are compared to each other, as well as to a group of non-deaf siblings and a g ...