Daughter Elimination in Tamil Nadu, India: A Tale of Two Ratios

Abstract

A disturbing feature of demographic trends in India is the sharp decline in the proportion of girls to boys. Most existing analyses of the Indian child sex ratio present a country wide picture and focus on trends across states. Such state level analyses may hide intra state variation. This paper uses district and village data on sex ratio at birth and infant mortality to examine the extent, geographical spread and nature (before or after birth) of daughter deficit within the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Our analysis shows that (i) daughter deficit in Tamil Nadu occurs in nearly half the state's districts; (ii) a large proportion of daughter deficit occurs before birth; (iii) daughter deficit rises with birth order and (iv) daughter elimination is not confined to particular socio-economic groups.

A Multinomial Model of Fertility Choice and Offspring Sex Ratios in India

“…The map in Figure 3 illustrates this geographic pattern and clearly shows a concentration of the missing women phenomenon in the Northwest part of the country. Even though low sex ratios are concentrated in Northwest India, anti-female disadvantage in survival is spreading throughout the country, with some of the lowest sex ratios observed in Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Orissa, as is evident in the map and documented by Agnihotri (2003) and Srinivasan and Bedi (2008).…”

Ensuring Daughter Survival in Tamil Nadu, India

“…However, the existing evidence shows that daughter deficit is no more likely to occur in poor families and indeed may be more prevalent in better-off families. Based on regression analysis of data collected in 2002 from Salem district, Srinivasan and Bedi (2008) show that the probability of daughter elimination does not differ across castes and is not responsive to differences in income, wealth and education.…”

“…Estimates based on the National Family Health Surveys (NFHS) and Sample Registration Surveys (SRS) indicate that this ratio has fallen from 943 in the 1980s to 876 in 2001-03. 3 A substantial proportion of this anomaly may be attributed to the differential survival of girls and boys in the 0-6 age group due to daughter elimination in the form of sex selection, infanticide and neglect (see Sen, 1990;Jha et al, 2006;Srinivasan and Bedi, 2008).…”

“…Based on a state-level analysis, Chunkath and Athreya (1997) provided evidence of the spread of the practice to eight districts and amongst 35 self-ascribed caste groups. More recently, Srinivasan and Bedi (2008) have shown that 15 of the state's 29 districts exhibit some form of daughter deficit.…”

“…While a detailed discussion is provided in Srinivasan and Bedi (2008), it is widely accepted that in the absence of interference, the sex ratio at birth is around 952 female live births per 1000 male live births. Sex ratios at birth (SRB) which are statistically different from and less than 952 are treated as evidence of pre-birth daughter deficit.…”