Study: "Every man for himself" on sinking ships

Turns out that chivalry isn't dead — it just never existed, at least on sinking ships.

According to new research from Sweden — a place where gender equality is more of a reality than most other places — throughout history, men have tended to get themselves on lifeboats far more often than women and children.

The researchers, economists Mikael Elinder and Oscar Erixson at Uppsala University, looked at 18 disasters over the past 300 years.

It's a pretty representative sample of wrecks, dealing with more than 15,000 people from more than 30 countries.

What did they find? 

Women have a distinct survival disadvantage compared to men. Captains and crew survive at a significantly higher rate than passengers.  

In other words, it's mostly survival of the fittest — especially, it seems, in British wrecks.

Overall, Elinder and Erixson found that 17.8 percent of women survived, compared to 34.5 percent of men.