Gender Bias in China, South Korea and India 1920–1990: Effects of War, Famine and Fertility Decline

Abstract

How has the history of the twentieth century aected the extent of female disadvantage in child survival in China, South Korea and India, and how has this in turn shaped spousal availability and marriage payments? These three countries have similar kinship systems which generate discrimination against girls, and they show the highest levels of excess female child mortality in the world. This article explores how the extent of excess female child mortality was in¯uenced by historical events in these countries in the period 1920±90, and discusses some of the substantial social rami®cations of resulting changes in sex ratios. The authors hypothesize that these changes encouraged the retention of brideprice in China while dowry became the norm in India, and illustrate how these demographic changes have in¯uenced the extent and manifestations of violence against women.

Why is Son preference so persistent in East and South Asia? a cross-country study of China, India and the Republic of Korea

“…When people are impoverished by crop failure or other stress, they discriminate more heavily against girls. For example, war and famine raised the level of discrimination in China and South Korea in the middle of this century (Das Gupta and Shuzhuo 1999). Of course, one would only expect to find such an effect in a society with strong son preference -not in societies whose kinship systems make for more equal valuation of males and females.…”

Supply-and-demand demographics: dowry, daughter aversion and marriage markets in contemporary north India

“…According to the arguments of Bhat and of Das Gupta and their colleagues (Bhat & Halli 1999;Das Gupta & Li 1999;Das Gupta et al 2003) linking dowry to the 'marriage squeeze', the resulting 'shortage' of marriageable men has meant that girls' parents feel compelled to respond to escalating dowry demands in order to ensure that their daughters can marry.…”

“…Nevertheless, like Bhat, Das Gupta and colleagues (Bhat & Halli 1999;Das Gupta & Li 1999;Das Gupta et al 2003), some commentators see dowry escalation as a transitory phenomenon that will reverse once more educated grooms are available or when the fertility transition reduces the numbers of potential brides (see e.g. Botticini & Siow 2003;Caldwell et al 1983).…”

“…Sharma 1984;Tambiah 1989) and, indeed, dowry has been a Jeffery: Supply-and-demand demographics 13 | P a g e concern in areas of northern India that have been characterised by particularly masculine sex ratios since at least the early 19 th century and that are the main locus of sex-selective abortion today. Aspects of gender politics (such as female infanticide) sometimes featured in 19 th century critiques, but commentaries often focused primarily on the indebtedness caused by compulsory displays of ostentatious generosity to honour the groom's family, selfaggrandisement and the staking of status claims by the bride's family, and fear of disgrace Gupta & Li Shuzhuo (1999) note that dowry can attain a normative status-which would perhaps operate against the tapering off in dowry inflation that they predict. To this list, Palriwala (2009) In addition, the period of economic liberalisation has resulted in the increasing availability of consumer goods, and contemporary dowry is intimately connected to India's increasingly market-driven economy (AIDWA 2003;Narayan 1997: 110).…”

Groom price-female human capital: Some empirical evidence

“…The contention is that rearing a female child requires not only a stable stream of income, but also the levels of earnings that exceed the levels required for an all male offspring household. The above argument can be thought of as a derivative of the much more famous hypothesis that contends: The poor discriminate more against their daughters than the rich -the hypothesis being that sharper resource constraints force the poor to allocate resources to the more valued males (see for examples, Miller, 1981;Das Gupta, 1987;Das Gupta & Shuzhuo, 1999). In this context, it is not unrealistic to assume that the government-employees in Bihar are more likely to have a higher number of female offspring than the rest of the society, because they have stable jobs, implying a guaranteed continuous flow of income.…”