Students work on their thesis for weeks, months, sometimes years. The Thesis Tales column is devoted to highlighting student research. In episode 5: Wieke Metzlar (26, now a PhD candidate) researched the high mortality rates of young girls in nineteenth-century Maastricht for her master's degree in Historical, Literary and Cultural Studies. Her research won her the Volkskrant-IISG thesis award.

How did you come up with this topic?

‘The nineteenth century is an interesting period. Industrialisation caused rapid changes to everyday life. And the advent of modern means of communication and transport, such as the telegram and the train, made communication between people much easier. In addition, the civil registry administration emerged. That makes it possible to study people – or well, aspects of their lives, because it’s obviously not their own voice – who wouldn’t always have appeared in sources previously.’

‘In Maastricht, for example, they started keeping a death register. This shows that between 1864 and 1930, a remarkably high number of girls died compared to boys, sometimes as much as 10 to 20 percent more. I was keen to find out what caused this.’

What exactly did you study?

‘I studied the excess mortality of girls aged between 0 and 20 in Maastricht. You would normally expect a slightly higher mortality rate among boys. After all, there are always slightly more boys born than girls, while more women than men are alive at the end of the lives. However, in societies where infectious diseases predominate, like in nineteenth-century Europe, you see that many more girls die from them than boys. Which raises the question: why?’

‘From the theory, three explanations emerge. Some argue that it is biological, that girls are simply more susceptible to infectious diseases. Others argue that it has more to do with gender roles, i.e. that girls in the household tend to take care of the sick more and therefore get sick quicker themselves.’

‘Girls were more likely to take care of the sick, they changed the sheets of sick family members, for example’

‘And there are others who argue that discrimination is the cause. For example, because boys are fed first and get better quality food. Or because boys were looked after better than girls. If two children are sick but there is only money to take care of one, the boy is still more important because he can look after the family later.’

‘However, these different explanations don’t tell us exactly who those girls are who have that higher mortality rate. To study the socio-economic and demographic character traits of those girls, you need individual data. And that’s what I looked at in my thesis.’

How did you go about this research?

‘The Maastricht death register contains all the individual causes of death and other socio-economic information of the deceased. I started looking at where there are structural differences, for example at the level of social class or age group. What is the profile of girls who were at higher risk of mortality, compared to the boys, but also compared to other girls?’

What are the main outcomes?

‘I discovered that daughters of parents who worked in contact occupations – such as in factories, where people were close together – were much more likely to die of infectious diseases than the sons. This mainly involved girls aged between 1 and 15. You would expect children to be equally likely to contract that disease, but you see that the girls were affected much more often.’

‘Ultimately, the excess mortality of girls in Maastricht seems to be mainly related to gender roles. Girls spent more time in households, caring for the sick more often or changing the sheets of sick family members, for example. As a result, they were more at risk of becoming infected themselves.’

What was it like for you to win an award with your thesis?

‘I found the studies of the other two nominees really interesting, so I thought the award would go to one of them. I was very surprised to win it. And the many responses I got afterwards were particularly nice. I received several e-mails from people who wanted to share their own ideas with me.’

‘From someone with a background in Biology, I got all the literature tips, while others sent personal stories. For example, from someone whose grandmother always had to change the sheets of sick family members.’

Would you take this further?

‘My thesis was mainly quantitative research. So the qualitative story is still missing. Which is why I am now looking for the personal stories for my PhD research.’

‘Now I want to look for the personal stories’

‘I also want to look at the different roles within families and the differences between families. Infant mortality is very much clustered within families. For example, in one family there are six children, three of whom die, while in another family of six, all the children survive. It is still unclear whether there is something genetic or something socio-economic going on there.’

What advice would you like to give to other students writing their thesis?

‘If you find it difficult to choose a topic: talk to your lecturers. I talked to several lecturers whose research interested me and asked them what topics could still be explored within that field.’

‘And while writing, I found it important to keep a balance between studying and relaxing. Ultimately, you have quite a long time, so you don’t need to work on it day and night. It is important to relax, otherwise you’ll burn out.’