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Copyright © The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press.
This article appears in the following Oxford Review of Economic Policy issue: INDIA [View the issue table of contents]
India's missing girls: biology, customs, and economic development
* University College London, e-mail: v.bhaskar{at}ucl.ac.uk
** University of Warwick, e-mail: b.gupta{at}warwick.ac.uk
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Abstract |
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We review the evidence on the sex ratio among children below the age of six. International evidence shows that the sex ratio at birth is slightly biased towards boys, but boys suffer greater mortality, a pattern consistent with Darwinian evolution. With economic development, the male bias in the child sex ratio increases. South and East India show levels and trends in the child sex ratio that are consistent with this evidence. However, unbalanced sex ratios in the northern and western states since the first censuses indicate discrimination against girls. Technological developments permitting sex-selective abortions have seriously aggravated the imbalances in these states. Economic modelling of parental choice regarding a child's gender suggests that gender imbalances may be consistent with individual maximization and marriage-market equilibrium. Nevertheless, these choices have adverse welfare consequences, which will be aggravated by the decline in population growth and consequent relaxation of the ‘marriage squeeze’.
Key Words: child sex ratio • gender discrimination • selective abortions • marriage markets
Thanks to Steve Broadberry, Wendy Carlin, Nick Crafts, and an anonymous referee for very useful comments and to Arpan Roy and Farshad Ardestani for research assistance.
1 Fragmentary evidence from the census of 1881 shows that the sex ratio in the age group 0–4 was about 94 and rose significantly after age 5.
2 Uttar Pradesh in 1981 appears to be an anomaly, showing an implausibly high sex ratio, compared to other censuses and other states. Discounting this figure, one observes that Uttar Pradesh is close to the northern pattern, with a high sex ratio.
3 Das Gupta and Bhatt (1997) argue that the rising CSR in the South is due to declining fertility there rather than to falling infant mortality.
4 This view is also echoed in the context of new technology in English agriculture in the eighteenth century that reduced women's participation. Female mortality was higher in rural areas than in urban areas in England and Wales in the age groups 10–19 and 20–44 during the mid-nineteenth century (MacNay et al., 2005). Klasen (1998) finds support for this claim in the age group 20–45 using rural household data from Germany, even after controlling for maternal mortality. Scholars of European demography attribute higher female mortality to their low participation in economic activity, which resulted in unfavourable intra-household resource allocation.
5 Dharma Kumar (1983) presented an early argument that as girls become scarcer, their value will rise, and this will reduce gender bias and improve their position in society.