IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/mareco/v1y2007i2p231-245.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Declining Juvenile Sex Ratios

Author

Listed:
  • Ravinder Kaur

    (Ravinder Kaur is Associate Professor, Sociology, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, e-mail: ravinder.iitd@gmail.com)

Abstract

This article examines the socio-economic reasons for the steep decline in child sex ratios, as revealed by the 2001 census. It questions existing arguments in the light of new fieldwork in several states in North India. It argues that we have to unpack ‘son preference’ in the modern context to understand why parents continue to prefer boys over girls in many parts of North and North-West India, and especially so in urban areas. Although there is some narrowing of the gender gap (as seen in education, health and work force participation indicators), girls remain undervalued when it comes to intergenerational transfers. The article argues that the changing interrelationships between education, work, marriage and family status in some senses reinforce the perceived need for sons as the source of a family's future stability and parental support. Given these expectations, insecurities around the material and social success of sons, and largely unchanging or even enhanced marriage and dowry expenditure for girls, drive parents to invest more in sons and propel family- building strategies with few or no girls.

Suggested Citation

  • Ravinder Kaur, 2007. "Declining Juvenile Sex Ratios," Margin: The Journal of Applied Economic Research, National Council of Applied Economic Research, vol. 1(2), pages 231-245, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:mareco:v:1:y:2007:i:2:p:231-245
    DOI: 10.1177/097380100700100204
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/097380100700100204
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/097380100700100204?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stephan Klasen & Claudia Wink, 2002. "A Turning Point in Gender Bias in Mortality? An Update on the Number of Missing Women," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 28(2), pages 285-312, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Espinoza-Delgado, José & Silber, Jacques, 2018. "Multi-dimensional poverty among adults in Central America and gender differences in the three I’s of poverty: Applying inequality sensitive poverty measures with ordinal variables," MPRA Paper 88750, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Bhagowalia, Priya & Chen, Susan E. & Masters, William A., 2011. "Effects and determinants of mild underweight among preschool children across countries and over time," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 66-77, January.
    3. Sonia Bhalotra & Abhishek Chakravarty & Dilip Mookherjee & Francisco J. Pino, 2019. "Property Rights and Gender Bias: Evidence from Land Reform in West Bengal," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(2), pages 205-237, April.
    4. Alexander Stimpfle & David Stadelmann, 2016. "Does Central Europe Import the Missing Women Phenomenon?," CREMA Working Paper Series 2016-04, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    5. Okoyeuzu, Chinwe R. & Obiamaka, P. Egbo & Onwumere, J.U.J, 2012. "Shaping the Nigerian Economy: The Role of Women," Acta Universitatis Danubius. OEconomica, Danubius University of Galati, issue 4(4), pages 15-24, August.
    6. Woojin Chung & Monica Das Gupta, 2007. "The Decline of Son Preference in South Korea: The Roles of Development and Public Policy," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 33(4), pages 757-783, December.
    7. Franck, Raphaã‹L & Rainer, Ilia, 2012. "Does the Leader's Ethnicity Matter? Ethnic Favoritism, Education, and Health in Sub-Saharan Africa," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 106(2), pages 294-325, May.
    8. Gaurav Datt & Cun Liu & Russell Smyth, 2022. "Missing Women in China and India over Seven Decades: An Analysis of Birth and Mortality Data from 1950 to 2020," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 58(9), pages 1807-1830, September.
    9. Akee, Randall K. Q. & Feir, Donn. L., 2016. "Excess Mortality, Institutionalization and Homelessness Among Status Indians in Canada," IZA Discussion Papers 10416, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Scott South & Katherine Trent & Sunita Bose, 2014. "Skewed Sex Ratios and Criminal Victimization in India," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(3), pages 1019-1040, June.
    11. Stephan Klasen, 2008. "Missing Women: Some Recent Controversies on Levels and Trends in Gender Bias in Mortality," Ibero America Institute for Econ. Research (IAI) Discussion Papers 168, Ibero-America Institute for Economic Research.
    12. Espinoza-Delgado, José & Klasen, Stephan, 2018. "Gender and multidimensional poverty in Nicaragua: An individual based approach," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 466-491.
    13. John Knight & Li Shi & Deng Quheng, 2010. "Son Preference and Household Income in Rural China," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(10), pages 1786-1805.
    14. Donna Feir & Randall Akee, 2019. "First Peoples lost: Determining the state of status First Nations mortality in Canada using administrative data," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 52(2), pages 490-525, May.
    15. Dreher, Axel & Gehring, Kai & Klasen, Stephan, 2015. "Gesture Politics or Real Commitment? Gender Inequality and the Allocation of Aid," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 464-480.
    16. Ebert, Cara & Klasen, Stephan & Vollmer, Sebastian, 2021. "Counting missing women: A reconciliation of the "flow measure" and the "stock measure"," Ruhr Economic Papers 924, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    17. Vani S. Kulkarni & Manoj Pandey & Raghav Gaiha, 2013. "MDGs and gender inequality," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series 18813, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    18. Stephan Klasen, 2006. "Pro-Poor Growth and Gender Inequality," Ibero America Institute for Econ. Research (IAI) Discussion Papers 151, Ibero-America Institute for Economic Research.
    19. Monica Das Gupta & Woojin Chung & Li Shuzhuo, 2009. "Evidence for an Incipient Decline in Numbers of Missing Girls in China and India," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 35(2), pages 401-416, June.
    20. Roland Pongou, 2020. "Is Excess (Fe)Male Mortality Caused by the Prenatal Environment, Child Biology, or Parental Discrimination? New Evidence from Male-Female Twins," Working Papers 2008E Classification-I15,, University of Ottawa, Department of Economics.

    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:sae:mareco:v:1:y:2007:i:2:p:231-245. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.ncaer.org/ .

    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.