IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/femeco/v20y2014i4p138-163.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Diverging Stories of “Missing Women” in South Asia: Is Son Preference Weakening in Bangladesh?

Author

Listed:
  • Naila Kabeer
  • Lopita Huq
  • Simeen Mahmud

Abstract

South Asia is a region characterized by a culture of son preference, severe discrimination against daughters, and excess levels of female mortality, leading to what Amartya Sen called the phenomenon of “missing women.” However, the onset of fertility decline across the region has been accompanied by considerable divergence in this phenomenon. In India, improvements in overall life expectancy have closed the gender gap in mortality rates among adults, but persisting gender discrimination among children and increasing resort to female-selective abortion has led to growing imbalance in child sex ratios and sex ratios at birth. In Bangladesh, by contrast, fertility decline has been accompanied by a closing of the gender gap in mortality in all age groups. Using quantitative and qualitative data, this study explores changing attitudes toward sons and daughters in Bangladesh to explain why the phenomenon of “missing women” has played out so differently in these two neighboring countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Naila Kabeer & Lopita Huq & Simeen Mahmud, 2014. "Diverging Stories of “Missing Women” in South Asia: Is Son Preference Weakening in Bangladesh?," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(4), pages 138-163, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:femeco:v:20:y:2014:i:4:p:138-163
    DOI: 10.1080/13545701.2013.857423
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13545701.2013.857423
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/13545701.2013.857423?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    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. Asadullah, M. Niaz & Mansoor, Nazia & Randazzo, Teresa & Wahhaj, Zaki, 2021. "Is son preference disappearing from Bangladesh?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    2. Saswata Ghosh & Aparajita Chattopadhyay, 2017. "Religion, Contraceptive Method Mix, and Son Preference Among Bengali-Speaking Community of Indian Subcontinent," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 36(6), pages 929-959, December.
    3. Ashwini Deshpande & Apoorva Gupta, 2019. "Nakusha? Son Preference, Resource Concentration and Gender Gaps in Education," Working Papers 13, Ashoka University, Department of Economics.
    4. Susana Martínez-Restrepo & Juliana Ramírez & Angélica Castillo & Laura Castrillón-Guerrero & Isabel Calero & Juliana Mejía & Lina Tafur, 2021. "El continuum de las violencias basadas en género en el contexto del conflicto armado colombiano y su relación con el empoderamiento económico de las sobrevivientes," Informes de Investigación 19447, Fedesarrollo.
    5. Murshid, Nadine Shaanta, 2017. "Parents, friends, and depression: A multi-country study of adolescents in South Asia," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 160-165.
    6. Ashwini Deshpande & Apoorva Gupta, 2019. "Nakusha? Son Preference, Resource Concentration and Gender Gaps in Education," Working Papers 1020, Ashoka University, Department of Economics.
    7. John R. Bowen, 2017. "Gender, Islam, and law," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2017-152, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    8. John R. Bowen, 2017. "Gender, Islam, and law," Working Papers id:11970, eSocialSciences.
    9. Elena Ambrosetti & Livia Elisa Ortensi & Cinzia Castagnaro & Marina Attili, 2022. "Skewed Sex Ratios at Birth in Italian Migrant Populations: Evidence from a Longitudinal Register 1999–2017," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 38(2), pages 301-315, May.
    10. Adnan M.S. Fakir & Tushar Bharati, 2022. "Health Costs of a "Healthy Democracy": The Impact of Peaceful Political Protests on Healthcare Utilization," Working Paper Series 0522, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    11. Tushar Bharati & Adnan M. S. Fakir, 2022. "Health Costs of a “Healthy Democracy”: The Impact of Peaceful Political Protests on Healthcare Utilization," Economics Discussion / Working Papers 22-15, The University of Western Australia, Department of Economics.
    12. Hoque Nazmul & Boulier Bryan L., 2020. "Hi-tech Sexism? Evidence from Bangladesh," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 20(3), pages 1-39, July.
    13. Siddique, Abu & Islam, Asad & Mozumder, Tanvir Ahmed & Rahman, Tabassum & Shatil, Tanvir, 2022. "Forced Displacement, Mental Health, and Child Development: Evidence from the Rohingya Refugees," SocArXiv b4fc7, Center for Open Science.
    14. Mario Biggeri & Jose Antonio Cuesta, 2021. "An Integrated Framework for Child Poverty and Well-Being Measurement: Reconciling Theories," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 14(2), pages 821-846, April.
    15. John R. Bowen, 2017. "Gender, Islam, and law," WIDER Working Paper Series 152, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:taf:femeco:v:20:y:2014:i:4:p:138-163. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RFEC20 .

    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.