Exploring the importance of excess female mortality and discrimination in "natality" in explaining the "lowness" of the sex ratio in India

Abstract

The beginning of the present century has been marked by a shift in attention from "excess" female mortality to discrimination in natality in explaining the "lowness" of the sex ratio or proportion of women in India's population. Such a shift in focus seemingly suggests that discrimination in intra-family allocation of resources has reduced substantially in India. In this context, an attempt has been made to decompose the observed lowness of the sex ratio in India vis-à-vis that of the stable population into that attributable to: (1) age structure difference, (2) excess female mortality, and (3) abnormalities in sex ratios at birth in India. Estimated contributions by each factor suggest that, as late as 2001, excess female mortality or the lowness of the relative survival advantage of women is the single most important determinant of "missing" women in India. The results also point to the importance of age structure difference, which accounts for a little more than 17% of the lowness of the sex ratio in India in 2001. © Journal compilation © 2009 Institute of Developing Economies.