Preprint Article Version 1 Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed

Frail Males on the American Frontier: The Role of Environmental Harshness on Sex Ratios at Birth Across a Period of Rapid Industrialization

Ryan Schacht
* ORCID logo ,
Mike Hollingshaus
,
Tim Bruckner
,
Shane J Macfarlan
,
Douglas Tharp
,
Heidi Hanson
,
Ken R Smith
Version 1 : Received: 2 April 2021 / Approved: 5 April 2021 / Online: 5 April 2021 (12:19:57 CEST)
Version 2 : Received: 5 April 2021 / Approved: 6 April 2021 / Online: 6 April 2021 (14:57:54 CEST)

A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.

Schacht, R.; Hollingshaus, M.; Hanson, H.; Macfarlan, S.J.; Tharp, D.; Bruckner, T.; Smith, K.R. Frail Males on the American Frontier: The Role of Environmental Harshness on Sex Ratios at Birth across a Period of Rapid Industrialization. Soc. Sci. 2021, 10, 319. Schacht, R.; Hollingshaus, M.; Hanson, H.; Macfarlan, S.J.; Tharp, D.; Bruckner, T.; Smith, K.R. Frail Males on the American Frontier: The Role of Environmental Harshness on Sex Ratios at Birth across a Period of Rapid Industrialization. Soc. Sci. 2021, 10, 319.

Abstract

While sex ratios at birth (SRB) have been shown to vary within and across populations, after over a century of research, explanations have remained elusive. A variety of ecological, demographic, economic, and social variables have been evaluated, yet their association with SRB has been equivocal. Here, in an attempt to shed light on this unresolved topic within the literature, we approach the question of what drives variation in SRB using detailed longitudinal data spanning the frontier-era to the early 20th century in a US population. Using several measures of environmental harshness, we find that fewer boys are born during challenging times. However, these results hold only for the frontier-era and not into a period of rapid industrialization. We argue that the mixed state of the literature may result from the impact and frequency of exogenous stressors being dampened in post-industrial societies.

Keywords

sex ratio; prenatal stress; demography; ecological stress

Subject

Business, Economics and Management, Accounting and Taxation

Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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