In just 10 days, it will be the 107th year anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. Deemed an “unsinkable” ship, the Titanic was the largest and most luxurious cruise liner of its day, boasting state-of-the-art technology. Yet on the night of 14 April, 1912, just four days after leaving England on its maiden voyage to New York, the Titanic struck an iceberg, which led to its catastrophic demise. On the morning of 15 April, the Titanic disappeared beneath the surface of the Atlantic Ocean, a disaster that resulted in the loss of many lives.

Loss of Lives in the Titanic

Interestingly, survivors of the Titanic shared some remarkable charactheristics. Firstly, women were more likely to survive.

Gender of Titanic Survivors

In the Edwardian era, “women and children first” was a moral code with a force stronger than law. When the order was given on the Titanic for women and children to board lifeboats first, no man rushed ahead. The Titanic, which took 3 hours to go beneath the water, sank slowly enough for social norms to hold sway. The passengers generally held to the rule of “women and children first” even though they could have easily overpowered the crew, or selfishly saved themselves as per usual behaviour in most other maritime disasters. Hence, you would have had a much higher chance at survival if you were a woman onboard the Titanic.

In addition, your chances of surviving depended greatly on the type of ticket you bought — a 1st class, 2nd class, or 3rd class ticket. As the chart below shows, 1st class passengers had the highest probability of survival, much more than that of 2nd and 3rd class passengers.

Class of Titanic Survivors

Although it was most likely true that wealthy 1st class passengers on the Titanic were lowered into life boats before poorer 3rd class passengers, it was not necessarily because of intentional biased actions on behalf of the crew. The 1st class cabins were almost all in the upper super-structure of the ship, where all of the lifeboats happened to be located. The standard practice when you’re loading up lifeboats is that you clear the deck as quickly as you can in order to make room for the people coming up behind. Since the first class passengers had a shorter walk and did not need to pass through nearly as many crowded chokepoints in order to get to the boat deck, they would have ended up at the front of the line for lifeboats.

Lastly, data suggests that children with fewer siblings on board of the Titanic were more likely to receive attention and to be rescued than children with more siblings on board.

Your siblings affect your chance of survival