ENVIRONMENT AND SEX-RATIOS AMONG ALASKA NATIVES - AN HISTORICAL-PERSPECTIVE

Human-environment interactions can affect the sex ratios of resource-d ependent societies in a variety of ways. Historical and contemporary d ata on Alaska Native populations illustrate such effects. Some eightee nth and early nineteenth century observers noted an excess of females, which they attributed to high mortality among hunters. Population cou nts in the later nineteenth century and well into the twentieth found instead an excess of men in many communities. Female infanticide was c redited as the explanation: since family survival depended upon huntin g success, males were more valued. Although infanticide explanations f or the excess of males have been widely believed, available demographi c data point to something else: higher adult female mortality. Finally , in the postwar years, the importance of mortality differentials seem s to have faded-and also changed direction. Female outmigration from v illages accounts for much of the gender imbalance among Native populat ions today. Natural-resource development, particularly North Slope oil , indirectly drives this migration. In Alaska's transcultural communit ies, the present gender imbalances raise issues of individual and cult ural survival.