IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v44y1997i2p171-180.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Traditions and reproductive technology in an urbanizing north Indian village

Author

Listed:
  • Khanna, Sunil K.

Abstract

This article addresses the practices of prenatal sex determination and sex-selective abortion through ethnographic research in Shahargaon, a Jat village undergoing rapid urbanization and cultural change in north India. The paper presents the sociodemographic outcomes of sex-selective abortion practiced within a system of patriarchy, manifested in terms of son preference and daughter disfavor. It argues that changes from an agriculture to an urban economy have led to a decrease in family size among Shahargaon Jats. In spite of improvements in educational and economic status, there is a reinforcement of son preference and daughter disfavor in the Jat community in Shahargaon. Jat couples are using prenatal sex determination and sex-selective abortion to achieve smaller family size and to reduce the number of daughters in a family.

Suggested Citation

  • Khanna, Sunil K., 1997. "Traditions and reproductive technology in an urbanizing north Indian village," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 171-180, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:44:y:1997:i:2:p:171-180
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(96)00144-X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Luojia Hu & Analía Schlosser, 2015. "Prenatal Sex Selection and Girls’ Well‐Being: Evidence from India," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 125(587), pages 1227-1261, September.
    2. Lee-Rife, Susan M., 2010. "Women's empowerment and reproductive experiences over the lifecourse," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(3), pages 634-642, August.
    3. Mevlude Akbulut-Yuksel & Daniel Rosenblum, 2023. "Estimating the Effects of Expanding Ultrasound Use on Sex Selection in India," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 59(4), pages 516-532, April.
    4. Leeson, Peter T. & Suarez, Paola A., 2017. "Child brides," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 40-61.
    5. Lisa Inchani & Dejian Lai, 2008. "Association of educational level and child sex ratio in rural and urban India," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 86(1), pages 69-81, March.
    6. Puri, Sunita & Adams, Vincanne & Ivey, Susan & Nachtigall, Robert D., 2011. ""There is such a thing as too many daughters, but not too many sons": A qualitative study of son preference and fetal sex selection among Indian immigrants in the United States," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(7), pages 1169-1176, April.
    7. Akbulut-Yuksel, Mevlude & Rosenblum, Daniel, 2012. "The Indian Ultrasound Paradox," IZA Discussion Papers 6273, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:44:y:1997:i:2:p:171-180. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.