If you were aboard the Titanic in 1912, your overall chance of survival was 32%. But survival rates were very different for different groups on board the doomed vessel…and they hold lessons for us about how people behave during disasters.

Do people descend into a self-centered free-for-all, a mad scramble in which the strongest survive?

The data suggest not. Whereas the survival rate for men was just 21%, it was 72% for women – and a whopping 95% for women traveling with children. Similarly, whereas kids under 16 had a 48% chance of surviving, it was 31% for people over 16.

Over the roughly 2 hours and 40 minutes it took the Titanic to sink, it appears that people acted to protect the more vulnerable and followed a norm of ‘women and children first’.

But there was also clear evidence of social and economic inequity as well. While 62% of travelers in 1st class survived, it fell to 40% in 2nd class, and 25% in 3rd.

Finally, although the Titanic was short on lifeboats, there were enough to save 52%. So although people generally behaved well, a lack of organization and leadership meant that many more people died – especially among the less well-off - than had to.

Data and analysis come from this 2011 paper by Frey, Savage, and Torgler:
https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.25.1.209