Evelien Walhout is Assistant Professor of Economic and Social History, with a special interest in historical demography and gender history. She obtained her PhD on morbidity and mortality patterns of infants and children in 19th and early 20th-century Netherlands in 2019 (Sociology, Tilburg University). She is President of the International Committee for Historical Demography (ICHD). She is member of the board of the Yearbook of Women's History, a peer-reviewed academic annual covering all aspects of gender connected with historical research throughout the world. She is also affiliated member of the Radboud Group for Historical Demography and Family History in Nijmegen.

More information about Evelien Walhout

Fields of interest

Specific research interests include gender history, child health, health in (port) cities, family and care, adoption practices, maternal mortality and (cause specific) mortality. Besides her affiliation with Leiden University, she participated in various national inquiries: violence in the Dutch youth care system after 1945, commissioned by the De Winter Commission (2019) and the national inquiry on relinquishment for adoption in the Netherlands between 1956 and 1984 (Ministry of Safety and Justice, The Hague).

Key publications

2021 (with Erik Beekink) 'Just Another Crisis? Individual’s Experiences and the Role of the Local Government and Church During the 1866 Cholera Epidemic in a Small Dutch Town', Historical Social Research 33 special issue epidemics.
2021 (with Jan Kok et al.), 'Hostages of time. Policy, practice and experiences of relinquishing a child for adoption in the Netherlands between 1956 and 1984', Annales de Démographie Historique.
2021 (with H. Sommerseth), 'The Gendering of Infectious Disease: Classifying Male and Female Causes of Death in the Netherlands and Norway, 1880-1910', Social History of Medicine.
2019: An Infants’ Graveyard? Region, religion and infant mortality in North Brabant, 1840-1940 (Dissertation Tilburg University).

2018 (with A. Janssens) ‘Gateways of disease? Do port cities have different cause-of-death patterns compared to other cities, the case of the Netherlands, 1875-1899’, ed. by Paul Puschmann and Tim Riswick, Building bridges. Scholars, history and historical demography (Nijmegen 2018).

2012 (with N. Bohnert, H.L. Jastad and J. Vechbanyongratana), ‘Offspring sex preference in Frontier America', Journal of interdisciplinary history 42 (Spring) 4, 519-541.

2010: ‘Is breast best? Evaluating breastfeeding patterns and causes of infant death in a Dutch province in the period 1875-1900', The history of the family 15 (1) 76-90.

2009 (with F. van Poppel and J. Schellekens) ‘Oversterfte van jonge meisjes in Nederland in de negentiende en eerste helft twintigste eeuw', Tijdschrift voor sociale en economische geschiedenis 6 (4) 37-69.

2009 (with H. van Dalen and F. van Poppel), ‘Diffusion of a social norm: tracing the emergence of the housewife in the Netherlands, 1812-1922', Economic History Review 62 (1) 99-127.

Publications