A most interesting read on behavior of those who work on sea, travel on sea and enjoy the sea. When there is a disaster, everyone reacts as they do according to the circumstance at the time. Mikael Elinder and Oscar Erixson have completed an extensive research on behavior during a maritime disaster. As quoted from their Abstract . . ."Since the sinking of the Titanic, there has been a widespread belief that the social norm of ‘women and children first’ gives women a survival advantage over men in maritime disasters, and that captains and crew give priority to passengers. We analyze a database of 18 maritime disasters spanning three centuries, covering the fate of over 15,000 individuals of more than 30 nationalities. Our results provide a new picture of maritime disasters. Women have a distinct survival disadvantage compared to men. Captains and crew survive at a significantly higher rate than passengers. We also find that the captain has the power to enforce normative behavior, that the gender gap in survival rates has declined, that women have a larger disadvantage in British shipwrecks, and that there seems to be no association between duration of a disaster and the impact of social norms. Taken together, our findings show that behavior in life-and-death situation is best captured by the expression ‘Every man for himself’."
Take a more in depth look at their interesting findings, download and read at: ifn.se
