IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/rehdxx/v37y2022i2p128-146.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The missing boys: Understanding the unbalanced sex ratio in South Africa, 1894–2011

Author

Listed:
  • Francisco J. Marco-Gracia
  • Johan Fourie

Abstract

At the beginning of the twentieth century in South Africa, the sex ratio for black children under five years was one of the lowest ever recorded. Sex ratios also differed markedly by racial group. Those for white children remained almost invariable, with more boys than girls, while black children had a clear majority of girls, a situation that the literature has almost completely overlooked. The reasons are still not completely clear. Although sex ratios at birth show more births of boys than girls, boys’ mortality was higher than girls’ mortality. Why boys’ mortality was so high and why, as a consequence, the twentieth-century under-five sex ratio for black children was so skewed towards girls, a ratio much lower, for example, than the sex ratios of pre-industrial European countries, remains unanswered. We suggest several possible explanations. The most likely explanation, we argue, was a preference for girls.

Suggested Citation

  • Francisco J. Marco-Gracia & Johan Fourie, 2022. "The missing boys: Understanding the unbalanced sex ratio in South Africa, 1894–2011," Economic History of Developing Regions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(2), pages 128-146, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:rehdxx:v:37:y:2022:i:2:p:128-146
    DOI: 10.1080/20780389.2021.1987212
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/20780389.2021.1987212
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/20780389.2021.1987212?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.

    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:rehdxx:v:37:y:2022:i:2:p:128-146. 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/rehd20 .

    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.