IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ums/papers/2009-06.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Son Preference, Sex Selection and the Problem of Missing Women in India

Author

Listed:
  • Deepankar Basu

    (University of Massachusetts Amherst)

Abstract

This paper empirically tests for two competing explanations of the increasing sex ratio at birth (SRB) in India: hepatitis B and human intervention. Estimating a male- preferring stopping rule with data from three rounds of the National Family Health Survey in India (1992, 1998 and 2005), I find that the probability of a male birth varies significantly across birth parities. Using a novel proxy for hepatitis B in India - tribal status - I also find that hepatitis B has no impact on the probability of male birth. I conclude that human intervention explains the increasing SRB in India. JEL Categories: J1, J7.

Suggested Citation

  • Deepankar Basu, 2009. "Son Preference, Sex Selection and the Problem of Missing Women in India," UMASS Amherst Economics Working Papers 2009-06, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ums:papers:2009-06
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.umass.edu/economics/publications/2009-06.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ming-Jen Lin & Ming-Ching Luoh, 2008. "Can Hepatitis B Mothers Account for the Number of Missing Women? Evidence from Three Million Newborns in Taiwan," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(5), pages 2259-2273, December.
    2. Monica Das Gupta, 2005. "Explaining Asia's “Missing Women”: A New Look at the Data," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 31(3), pages 529-535, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alexander Stimpfle & David Stadelmann, 2016. "Does Central Europe Import the Missing Women Phenomenon?," CREMA Working Paper Series 2016-04, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    2. Nandi, Arindam & Deolalikar, Anil B., 2013. "Does a legal ban on sex-selective abortions improve child sex ratios? Evidence from a policy change in India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 216-228.
    3. Akee, Randall K. Q. & Feir, Donn. L., 2016. "Excess Mortality, Institutionalization and Homelessness Among Status Indians in Canada," IZA Discussion Papers 10416, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Stephan Klasen, 2008. "Missing Women: Some Recent Controversies on Levels and Trends in Gender Bias in Mortality," Ibero America Institute for Econ. Research (IAI) Discussion Papers 168, Ibero-America Institute for Economic Research.
    5. Hongbin Li & Junjian Yi & Junsen Zhang, 2011. "Estimating the Effect of the One-Child Policy on the Sex Ratio Imbalance in China: Identification Based on the Difference-in-Differences," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 48(4), pages 1535-1557, November.
    6. Vani S. Kulkarni & Manoj Pandey & Raghav Gaiha, 2013. "MDGs and gender inequality," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series 18813, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    7. Shang-Jin Wei & Xiaobo Zhang, 2011. "The Competitive Saving Motive: Evidence from Rising Sex Ratios and Savings Rates in China," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(3), pages 511-564.
    8. Oster, Emily & Chen, Gang & Yu, Xinsen & Lin, Wenyao, 2010. "Hepatitis B does not explain male-biased sex ratios in China," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 107(2), pages 142-144, May.
    9. Shang-Jin Wei & Xiaobo Zhang, 2011. "Sex Ratios, Entrepreneurship, and Economic Growth in the People's Republic of China," NBER Working Papers 16800, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Michael A. Clemens, 2017. "The Meaning Of Failed Replications: A Review And Proposal," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(1), pages 326-342, February.
    11. Shang-Jin Wei & Xiaobo Zhang & Yin Liu, 2012. "Status Competition and Housing Prices," NBER Working Papers 18000, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Sivadasan, Jagadeesh & Xu, Wenjian, 2021. "Missing women in India: Gender-specific effects of early-life rainfall shocks," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    13. Avraham Ebenstein, 2010. "The "Missing Girls" of China and the Unintended Consequences of the One Child Policy," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 45(1).
    14. Donna Feir & Randall Akee, 2019. "First Peoples lost: Determining the state of status First Nations mortality in Canada using administrative data," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 52(2), pages 490-525, May.
    15. Daniel S. Grossman & David J.G. Slusky, 2019. "The Impact of the Flint Water Crisis on Fertility," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 56(6), pages 2005-2031, December.
    16. Soo Hong Chew & Junjian Yi & Junsen Zhang & Songfa Zhong, 2018. "Risk Aversion and Son Preference: Experimental Evidence from Chinese Twin Parents," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(8), pages 3896-3910, August.
    17. Ebert, Cara & Klasen, Stephan & Vollmer, Sebastian, 2021. "Counting missing women: A reconciliation of the "flow measure" and the "stock measure"," Ruhr Economic Papers 924, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    18. Kimberly Singer Babiarz & Grant Miller & Shige Song & Paul Ma, 2019. "Population sex imbalance in China before the One-Child Policy," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 40(13), pages 319-358.
    19. V. Bhaskar, 2011. "Sex Selection and Gender Balance," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(1), pages 214-244, February.
    20. Roland Pongou, 2020. "Is Excess (Fe)Male Mortality Caused by the Prenatal Environment, Child Biology, or Parental Discrimination? New Evidence from Male-Female Twins," Working Papers 2008E Classification-I15,, University of Ottawa, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    son preference; sex selective abortion.;

    JEL classification:

    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
    • J7 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ums:papers:2009-06. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Daniele Girardi The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Daniele Girardi to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deumaus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.