IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ess/wpaper/id4842.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Age Distribution of Missing Women in India

Author

Listed:
  • Siwan Anderson
  • Debraj Ray

Abstract

Relative to developed countries, there are far fewer women than men in India. Estimates suggest that more than 25 million women are "missing". Sex selection at birth and the mistreatment of young girls are widely regarded as key explanations. A decomposition of missing women by age across the states of India is done. The state-wise variation in the distribution of missing women across the age groups makes it very difficult to draw simple conclusions to explain the missing women phenomenon in India. [BREAD Working Paper No. 326]. URL:[http://ipl.econ.duke.edu/bread/papers/working/326.pdf].

Suggested Citation

  • Siwan Anderson & Debraj Ray, 2012. "The Age Distribution of Missing Women in India," Working Papers id:4842, eSocialSciences.
  • Handle: RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:4842
    Note: Institutional Papers
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.esocialsciences.org/Download/repecDownload.aspx?fname=A201239153943_20.pdf&fcategory=Articles&AId=4842&fref=repec
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sylvie Dubuc & David Coleman, 2007. "An Increase in the Sex Ratio of Births to India‐born Mothers in England and Wales: Evidence for Sex‐Selective Abortion," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 33(2), pages 383-400, June.
    2. Francis Bloch & Vijayendra Rao, 2002. "Terror as a Bargaining Instrument: A Case Study of Dowry Violence in Rural India," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 1029-1043, September.
    3. D. Jayaraj, 2009. "Exploring The Importance Of Excess Female Mortality And Discrimination In “Natality” In Explaining The “Lowness” Of The Sex Ratio In India," The Developing Economies, Institute of Developing Economies, vol. 47(2), pages 177-201, June.
    4. Jason Abrevaya, 2009. "Are There Missing Girls in the United States? Evidence from Birth Data," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 1-34, April.
    5. Dhairiyarayar Jayaraj & Sreenivasan Subramanian, 2004. "Women's Wellbeing and the Sex Ratio at Birth: Some Suggestive Evidence from India," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(5), pages 91-119.
    6. Kochar, Anjini, 1999. "Evaluating Familial Support for the Elderly: The Intrahousehold Allocation of Medical Expenditures in Rural Pakistan," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 47(3), pages 620-656, April.
    7. Deaton, Angus S, 1989. "Looking for Boy-Girl Discrimination in Household Expenditure Data," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 3(1), pages 1-15, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Bandiera, Oriana. & Buehren, Niklas. & Burgess, Robin & Goldstein, Markus P., & Gulesci, Selim. & Rasul, Imran. & Sulaiman, Munshi., 2015. "Women’s economic empowerment in action : evidence from a randomized control trial in Africa," ILO Working Papers 994874053402676, International Labour Organization.
    3. 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.
    4. Astrid Sneyers & Anneleen Vandeplas, 2013. "Girl Power in Agricultural Production: How Much Does it Yield? A Case-Study on the Dairy Sector in India," Working Papers id:5562, eSocialSciences.
    5. Akansha Batra & Indrani Gupta & Abhiroop Mukhopadhyay, 2018. "Gender Differences in Health Expenditure of Rural Cancer Patients: Evidence from a Public Tertiary Care Facility in India," Journal of Quantitative Economics, Springer;The Indian Econometric Society (TIES), vol. 16(3), pages 615-629, September.
    6. Sivadasan, Jagadeesh & Xu, Wenjian, 2021. "Missing women in India: Gender-specific effects of early-life rainfall shocks," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    7. Fenske, James & Gupta, Bishnupriya & Neumann, Cora, 2022. "Missing women in Colonial India," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 613, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    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. Nandita Saikia & Moradhvaj & Jayanta Kumar Bora, 2016. "Gender Difference in Health-Care Expenditure: Evidence from India Human Development Survey," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(7), pages 1-15, July.
    10. Siwan Anderson & Debraj Ray, 2019. "Missing Unmarried Women," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(5), pages 1585-1616.
    11. So Yoon Ahn, 2021. "Matching across Markets: An Economic Analysis of Cross-Border Marriage," Working Papers 2021-047, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    12. TENIKUE Michel & TEQUAME Miron, 2017. "Birth order, Sex Composition and Risky Behaviour of Adolescent Girls in Nigeria," LISER Working Paper Series 2017-04, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER).
    13. Tafesse, Wiktoria, 2022. "The effect of Universal Salt Iodization on cognitive test scores in rural India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    14. Ebert, Cara & Vollmer, Sebastian, 2022. "Girls unwanted – The role of parents’ child-specific sex preference for children’s early mental development," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    15. Zimmermann, Laura, 2018. "It’s a boy! Women and decision-making benefits from a son in India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 326-335.
    16. Milazzo, Annamaria, 2018. "Why are adult women missing? Son preference and maternal survival in India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 467-484.
    17. Fenske, James & Gupta, Bishnupriya & Neumann, Cora, 2022. "Missing women in Colonial India," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1402, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    18. Anirban Mitra, 2018. "Mandated Political Representation and Redistribution," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 85(338), pages 266-280, April.
    19. 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).
    20. Mondal, Bidisha & Dubey, Jay Dev, 2020. "Gender discrimination in health-care expenditure: An analysis across the age-groups with special focus on the elderly," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 258(C).
    21. Arun Jaitley, 2018. "Economic Survey 2017: Volume I, Chapter 7: Gender and Son Meta-Preference: Is Development Itself an Antidote?," Working Papers id:12445, eSocialSciences.
    22. Bhalotra, Sonia & Brulé, Rachel & Roy, Sanchari, 2020. "Women's inheritance rights reform and the preference for sons in India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).

    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. 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).
    2. Sehar Ezdi & Ahmet Melik Baş, 2020. "Gender preferences and fertility: Investigating the case of Turkish immigrants in Germany," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 43(3), pages 59-96.
    3. Douglas Almond & Lena Edlund & Kevin Milligan, 2009. "O Sister, Where Art Thou? The Role of Son Preference and Sex Choice: Evidence from Immigrants to Canada," NBER Working Papers 15391, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Sivadasan, Jagadeesh & Xu, Wenjian, 2021. "Missing women in India: Gender-specific effects of early-life rainfall shocks," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    5. Bhalotra, Sonia & Chakravarty, Abhishek & Gulesci, Selim, 2020. "The price of gold: Dowry and death in India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    6. Aldén, Lina & Neuman, Emma, 2022. "Culture and the gender gap in choice of major: An analysis using sibling comparisons," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 201(C), pages 346-373.
    7. 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.
    8. Samuel Marden, 2016. "Family Size and the Demand for Sex Selection: Evidence From China," Working Paper Series 9016, Department of Economics, University of Sussex.
    9. Le, Kien & Nguyen, My, 2022. "Son Preference and Health Disparities in Developing Countries," MPRA Paper 112348, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Frank T. Denton & Byron G. Spencer, 2014. "Exploring the Population Implications of Male Preference When the Sex Probabilities at Birth Can Be Altered," Department of Economics Working Papers 2014-10, McMaster University.
    11. V. Bhaskar, 2011. "Sex Selection and Gender Balance," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(1), pages 214-244, February.
    12. González, Libertad, 2018. "Sex selection and health at birth among Indian immigrants," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 64-75.
    13. Alicia Adserà & Ana Ferrer, 2014. "Immigrants and Demography: Marriage, Divorce, and Fertility," Working Papers 1401, University of Waterloo, Department of Economics, revised Jan 2014.
    14. Milazzo, Annamaria, 2018. "Why are adult women missing? Son preference and maternal survival in India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 467-484.
    15. Anukriti, S. & Kwon, Sungoh & Prakash, Nishith, 2022. "Saving for dowry: Evidence from rural India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    16. Almond, Douglas & Cheng, Yi, 2021. "Perinatal health among 1 million Chinese-Americans," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 40(C).
    17. S Anukriti & Sungoh Kwon & Nishith Prakash, 2018. "Household Savings and Marriage Payments: Evidence from Dowry in India," Working papers 2018-09, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.
    18. Anukriti, S & Kumler, Todd J., 2014. "Tariffs, Social Status, and Gender in India," IZA Discussion Papers 7969, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. S. Anukriti, 2013. "The Fertility-Sex Ratio Tradeoff: Unintended Consequences of Financial Incentives," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 827, Boston College Department of Economics.
    20. Ana Ferrer & Alicia Adsera, 2016. "Speeding up for a son? Fertility transitions among Migrants to Canada," Working Papers 1602, University of Waterloo, Department of Economics, revised Mar 2016.

    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:ess:wpaper:id:4842. 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: Padma Prakash (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.esocialsciences.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.