(Apologies if this has been discussed elsewhere on p.ie - I did do a search before and couldn't see it)

One thing that struck me reading the list of residential institutions in the Irish Times last week and the number of children in them (this page Brutality and dire conditions in climate of fear - The Irish Times - Thu, May 21, 2009 gives an idea but there may other pages) is the large male to female ratio. My impression would be 85:15 but I did not do any calucation.

We know some of the residents had committed crimes but a large percentage of them seemed to be there more because their parent(s) fell on hard times, which was very common then with large families, Ireland being a poor country, etc.

I asked my mother about this and she suggested it was because families would be more willing to take in a girl as they would be less trouble.

Anyone know if this could be the case/heard examples of this? She mentioned to me before that people taking in children was quite common; raising children at that stage was not expensive (she grew up in the 40s and 50s). She lived in a small two up, two down (my phrase) terraced house with three other children but said lots of the families in the row were much bigger i.e. she's not talking about just families with money taking in children.