Lotta Vikström

Identifying dissonant and complementary data on women through the triangulation of historical sources

If triangulation and its worth have long been contested amongst social scientists, historians have not discussed it. In this paper, a historical demographer practises data triangulation by combining qualitative and quantitative sources. The aim is to explore how these sources identify nineteenth‐century womens occupations and thus challenge the gender bias found in population registers as they report incomplete information on womens work. This bias is acknowledged by feminist historians and also evident in quantitative records in developing countries. To explain the outcome of dissonant data that this historical study shows and shares with modern triangulation approaches, womens ability to represent their occupational identities in the different sources is discussed. Some of the epistemological implications that arise from the triangulation of data that subsists under separate paradigms are also reflected upon. Although triangulation is far from infallible, it is argued that it helps to gain, view and question knowledge.

Before and After Crime: Life-Course Analyses of Young Offenders Arrested in Nineteenth-Century Northern Sweden

This essay combines prison records with parish registers to employ life-course perspectives on past offenders and expand the view of them. The results show highly unusual criminal and demographic data that indicate the life experiences of 320 offenders in Sweden before and after they had committed their crime in 1840-1880. Paupers did not dominate among them, and due to their evident local background most offenders had access to parental ties. In providing informal control such socio-geographical features are believed to limit peoples criminal involvement, but this was not so for these individuals. As the parish registers under study are digitized by the Demographic Data Base, Umeå University, they allow event-history analyses. Examining four demographic events (relocation, marriage, career and death) helps to statistically distinguish and differentiate the stigma that afflicts offenders upon release according to some labeling theories. The trajectories of most male offenders suggest that they established social bonds to the surrounding people and society, probably because they were not markedly stigmatized but were faced with tolerant attitudes. It seems as if similar attitudes did not include the thieves and the few female criminals, however, as narrow marital and survival chances characterized their life after crime.

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.

Societal change and individual past in connection with crime: demographic perspectives on young people arrested in northern Sweden in the nineteenth century

Little is known about the lives of criminal offenders prior to their incarceration in past time. Knowing the background of offenders, however, may explain why they broke the law. This article explo ...

Demographic outcomes during colonisation : Migration and mortality among indigenous and non-indigenous populations in nineteenth-century Sweden

Due to insufficient historical population data, there is limited knowledge about the demographic outcomes of colonisation. This study provides demographic evidence of the difficulties faced by the ...

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 ...

Like father, like daughter? Intergenerational social mobility among business- and craftswomen in Sundsvall, Sweden, 1860–1893

Using multiple sources, this study identifies womens intergenerational social mobility to a greater degree than most other studies on the topic. It examines the status of the fathers of women who ...