Women, resources, and dispersal in nineteenth-century Sweden

In a recent study, female dispersal in nineteenth-century Sweden has been found to correlate negatively with access to resources: women with limited access to local resources tended to migrate more frequently. In this paper I review the literature to explore whether this observed correlation was derived from a relationship in which a woman's limited access to resources worsened her position in the marriage market and led to migration, as a strategy to improve resources and this position. Many studies within a variety of disciplines indicate that a woman's propensity to disperse from her parish of birth variedinversely with her propensity to inherit resources. My review of the literature suggests that the less likely a woman was to inherit resources, the lower her probability of marriage, the later her expected age at marriage, and the earlier she left home, presumably to improve her resource base for marriage.