Squeeze in family size fuels India’s sex ratio slide

14 December, New Delhi: Despite girl-friendly policies, public information campaigns and a new act to help catch culprits who perform sex detection tests and abort female foetuses, the proportion of girls to boys in five districts of states with severely skewed sex ratios continues to slide, says research by ActionAid.

Data gathered from interviews with a representative sample of over 6000 households show sex ratios have dropped in four out of five districts since the 2001 census.

In Punjab among the upper caste Jat Sikh community just 500 girls were found for every 1000 boys in rural areas. In urban Punjab among Brahmins the ratio is a shocking 300.

In Himachal Pradesh and Punjab, researchers recorded a growing preference for having just one child.

"Squeeze on family size is fuelling the trend of ‘disappearing’ daughters. For households expressing preference for one child only, they want to make sure this is a son,” says ActionAid researcher, Jyoti Sapru.

Districts surveyed in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh show a dip in sex ratio as families move from first to second or third child. The biggest drop recorded is in Morena (MP) with 844 girls for every 1000 boys amongst first born, but just 715 by the third child.

“Mortality rate for girls increases dramatically according to birth order. There are more ‘missing’ girls among the second and third born, as families pursue their preference for boys through abortion or neglect of their sisters,” says Sapru.

In an extract from the study, researchers ask Batoon from Dhaulpur in Rajasthan about the relatively big gap between the two sons. He says that his daughter died due to illness. His wife retorts: “The truth of the matter is that he ‘ate’ her. I told him several times to take her for treatment but he remained careless, because of which she died.”

The study also points to a correlation between sliding sex-ratio and a shift from agriculture to non-agricultural work. As land holdings and agricultural incomes diminish districts are showing a lower sex ratio. Rural Kangra (Himachal Pradesh) and Morena (Madhya Pradesh) reflect this trend very clearly.

“While women contribute to agriculture, non-agricultural earnings are seen largely as a male preserve. As the search for work increasingly involves migrating far from home, girls become ‘unwanted’ in the family,” says Rajni Palriwala of Delhi School of Economics (Department of Sociology), part of the research advisory board.

Modern technologies of sex-selection such as ultrasound combine with traditional ‘technologies’ of mantras, herbal potions and astrology to offer more options for those who desire male progeny.

“Even in poorer rural areas, families are willing to spend a significant chunk of their income on travelling to sex test centres in towns to detect the gender of the foetus,” said Mary John of the Centre for Women’s Development Studies, at a release of the initial findings of the study in New Delhi this week (13-14 December).

Anchita Ghatak who leads ActionAid’s work on women’s rights stresses the significance of this study: “To reverse the decline in sex ratio we have to understand the reasons behind decisions to abort or neglect baby girls: How economic and social factors such as property rights, marriage dowries and gender roles are combining to condemn girls even before they are born. And how government and civil society can work together to turn these tragic trends around.”

ENDS.

Spokespersons:

Sarasvati Raju, Jawaharlal Nehru University

Rajni Palriwala, Delhi School of Economics

Ravinder Kaur, Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi

Mary John, Centre for Women’s Development Studies

Jyoti Sapru, ActionAid researcher

Notes to editor:

The study has been coordinated by ActionAid with the support of International Development Research Centre, Canada.

Advisory Board for the study comprises of sociologists and demographers from Jawaharlal University, Delhi University and Centre for Women Development Studies.

ActionAid is an international anti-poverty agency working in over 40 countries, taking sides with poor people to end poverty and injustice together.

In India ActionAid is working with some 300 civil society organisations and over 12 million poor and excluded people in 24 states.