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Sex selection and gender balance

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  • Bhaskar, V

Abstract

We model sex selection and the equilibrium sex ratio, when parents care about their child's marriage prospects. With intrinsic son preference, selection results in a male-biased sex ratio. This is inefficient, due to a marriage market congestion externality. Medical innovations that facilitate selection aggravate the inefficiency. If son preference arises endogenously, due to population growth causing an excess supply of women on the marriage market, selection may improve welfare. Empirically, sex selection causes an excess of males and reduces welfare in China. In India, rising cohort sizes give rise to an excess of women in most parts of the country.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by University Library of Munich, Germany in its series MPRA Paper with number 22698.

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Date of creation: 07 Jan 2010
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Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:22698

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Keywords: gender discrimination; sex selection; marriage markets; sex ratios;

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Cited by:
  1. Hippolyte D'Albis & David De La Croix, 2012. "Missing Daughters, Missing Brides ?," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-00717385, HAL.
  2. Claus C Pörtner, 2010. "Sex Selective Abortions, Fertility and Birth Spacing," Working Papers UWEC-2010-04-R, University of Washington, Department of Economics, revised Aug 2010.
  3. Shang-Jin Wei & Xiaobo Zhang, 2011. "Sex Ratios, Entrepreneurship, and Economic Growth in the People’s Republic of China," NBER Working Papers 16800, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  4. Bhaskar, Venkataraman & Hopkins, Ed, 2011. "Marriage as a Rat Race: Noisy Pre-Marital Investments with Assortative Matching," CEPR Discussion Papers 8529, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

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