Fertility Decline and Increased Manifestation of Sex Bias in India

Analysis of socio-political and health practices influencing sex ratio at birth in Viet Nam

“…Ultrasound services have grown and become a profitable business for service providers and suppliers. 41,42 Several scholars have attributed high sex ratio at birth in Asia, at least in part, to increasing availability of antenatal sex detection. 43,44 Trans-abdominal ultrasound can detect the sex of the fetus with accuracy reported between 80% 45 and even 98.7% 46 at the 12th week of gestation.…”

Sex Selective Abortions, Fertility and Birth Spacing

“…First, it does not take into account 1 See Murthi, Guio and Dreze (1995) and Dyson (2001). 2 See Das Gupta and Bhat (1997), Sudha and Rajan (1999), Arnold, Kishor and Roy (2002), Retherford and Roy (2003) and Jha, Kumar, Vasa, Dhingra, Thiruchelvam and Moineddin (2006). India is not alone; both China and the Republic of Korea have seen significant changes in the sex ratio at birth (Zeng, Tu, Gu, Xu, Li and Li, 1993;Park and Cho, 1995).…”

Could changes in reported sex ratios at birth during China's 1958-1961 famine support the adaptive sex ratio adjustment hypothesis?

“…In most countries with good demographic data and no known human interference in the process of reproduction, such as most North and West European countries, recorded SRB has long been around 105. In contrast, in some countries and areas, for example, India, Mainland China, South Korea, and Taiwan, there is strong evidence suggesting that the reported high SRB is mainly a result of human intervention and under-reporting of girls (Zeng et al 1993;Gu and Roy 1995;Park and Cho 1995;Das Gupta and Bhat 1997;Dyson 2012). It is noteworthy that such a man-made high SRB has been declining in South Korea in recent years (Chung and Das Gupta 2007;Guilmoto 2009).…”