GENDER SATURATION IN THE SOUTHERN CAUCASUS: FAMILY COMPOSITION AND SEX-SELECTIVE ABORTION

2014 ◽  
Vol 46 (6) ◽  
pp. 786-796 ◽  
Author(s):  
MICHEL GARENNE ◽  
SOPHIE HOHMANN
Keyword(s):  
Sex Ratio ◽  
Health Surveys ◽  
Demographic And Health Surveys ◽  
Family Composition ◽  
Selective Abortion ◽  
The Family ◽  
Sex Selective Abortion ◽  
Southern Caucasus ◽  
Complex Relationships ◽  
The Relationship

SummaryThe study investigates the complex relationships between sex-selective abortion and family composition in two countries of the Southern Caucasus: Armenia and Azerbaijan. Data were drawn from maternity histories recorded in Demographic and Health Surveys (DHSs). In both countries, the relationship between the sex ratio of the next birth and the number of girls already born changed from negative to positive after 1992, when sex-selective abortion became prevalent. In Azerbaijan, but not in Armenia, a similar change was noticed for the relationship between the sex ratio of the next birth and the number of boys already born, this time from positive to negative. All changes in slopes were highly statistically significant. These findings indicate that sex-selective abortion was prevalent in both countries, and could work both ways in Azerbaijan. The results are interpreted in terms of ‘gender saturation’, that is a desire of families to better balance the composition of the family when too many children of the same sex are already born, which is consistent with opinion surveys indicating a preference for balanced families.

scholarly journals Fertility Decline and Missing Women

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 118-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seema Jayachandran
Keyword(s):  
Sex Ratio ◽  
Fertility Decline ◽  
Low Fertility ◽  
Sex Composition ◽  
Ratio Increase ◽  
Selective Abortion ◽  
Sex Selective Abortion ◽  
Missing Women ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Male To Female

The desire for smaller families is conjectured as one reason the male-to-female sex ratio has increased with economic development in several countries. Families that strongly want at least one son are less likely to obtain him by chance at low fertility, which could increase their use of sex-selective abortion. This paper quantifies the relationship between desired fertility and the sex ratio in India by eliciting sex composition preferences at specified fertility levels. I find that the desired sex ratio increases sharply as fertility falls and that fertility decline explains one third to one half of India's recent sex ratio increase. (JEL I21, J13, J16, O15, O18)

scholarly journals Pregnancy Centers: A Clear Purpose of Medicine with Coherent Ethics

2020 ◽  
Vol 87 (3) ◽  
pp. 334-340
Author(s):  
Christopher Lisanti ◽  
Sandy Christiansen
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Customer Relationship ◽  
Physician Patient Relationship ◽  
Selective Abortion ◽  
Elective Abortion ◽  
Sex Selective Abortion ◽  
Medicine Today ◽  
Subjective View ◽  
Physician Patient ◽  
The Relationship

What is the purpose of medicine? This fundamental question is at the heart of the criticisms faced by pregnancy centers (PCs) and accusations that they are unethical. PCs maintain that the purpose of medicine is to treat and prevent disease. Because pregnancy is not a disease, PCs do not advocate for elective abortion or contraceptives. PCs view the function of values (e.g., autonomy) as constraints upon physicians that prevent physical and ethical harms. Their critics either embrace an ill-defined purpose of medicine such as promoting well-being or conflate the value of autonomy with medicine’s purpose. This leads to a subjective view of medicine and changes the relationship from physician–patient to vendor–customer. This subjective nature along with its attendant vendor–customer relationship cannot solve for current or future ethical problems such as sex-selective abortion and its fatal discrimination against females. Summary: Pregnancy Centers embrace a traditional “treat and prevent disease” purpose of medicine.  This clear and objective purpose logically leads to not advocating for abortion or contraceptives.  The authors outline a coherent ethical structure outlining the role values play in regards to this purpose. This is contrasted with the current ill-defined purpose within medicine today that has led to an inconsistent change of the physician-patient relationship to a vendor-customer one, ethical incoherence, and several attendant harms, most notably sex-selective abortion.

Changing Mindsets: How China's Abnormal Sex Ratio Is Turning Its Government into a Champion of Gender Equality

2008 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 1-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liang Ying Tan
Keyword(s):  
Sex Ratio ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Fertility Decline ◽  
Gender Attitudes ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
Technological Advancement ◽  
Sex Ratio At Birth ◽  
Selective Abortion ◽  
Sex Selective Abortion ◽  
The Government

AbstractA combination of factors has led to an increasing imbalance in the sex ratio of China's population. China's sex ratio at birth is 119 boys per 100 girls, far above the global norm of 106. This paper will focus on the abnormal sex ratio as a consequence of traditional Chinese gender attitudes holding women inferior and subordinate to men, which have been brought to the fore by a combination of fertility decline and technological advancement. Accordingly, any solution to the demographic problem must address these prevalent, entrenched mind-sets. The government appears to realise that existing laws prohibiting sex-selective abortion and infanticide will fail to correct the sex ratio. This paper examines the trend in government responses towards efforts to address traditional gender attitudes and argues that the demographic crisis may have turned the Chinese government into an unlikely champion of gender equality.

The Effects of Polygyny and Domicility on Offspring Sex Ratio in Ghana

2007 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 431-456
Author(s):  
Adansi Amankwaa
Keyword(s):  
Sex Ratio ◽  
Family Structure ◽  
Living Arrangements ◽  
Living Arrangement ◽  
Demographic And Health Surveys ◽  
Offspring Sex Ratio ◽  
Ratio Bias ◽  
Sex Ratio Bias ◽  
Offspring Sex ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThis article explores how family structure and domicility influences offspring sex ratio bias, specifically living arrangements of husband in polygynous unions. Data from three Ghana Demographic and Health Surveys were used to examine the relationship between family structure and offspring sex ratio at birth, something that previous studies have not been able to do. This study estimate models of sex ratio offspring if the wives live together with husband present and wives live in separate dwellings and are visited by husband in turn. The results suggest that within polygynous marriages there are more male births, especially when husbands reside in the same dwelling as wives, than when husbands reside in separate dwellings from their wives. The analyses show that offspring sex ratio is related to the structure of living arrangement of husbands in polygynous unions. Indeed, the findings suggest that living arrangements and family structure among humans are important factors in predicting offspring sex ratio bias.

scholarly journals Systematic assessment of the sex ratio at birth for all countries and estimation of national imbalances and regional reference levels

2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (19) ◽  
pp. 9303-9311 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fengqing Chao ◽  
Patrick Gerland ◽  
Alex R. Cook ◽  
Leontine Alkema
Keyword(s):  
Sex Ratio ◽  
Direct Consequence ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Sex Ratio At Birth ◽  
Reference Levels ◽  
Uncertainty Interval ◽  
Selective Abortion ◽  
National Reference ◽  
Sex Selective Abortion ◽  
Regional Reference

The sex ratio at birth (SRB; ratio of male to female live births) imbalance in parts of the world over the past few decades is a direct consequence of sex-selective abortion, driven by the coexistence of son preference, readily available technology of prenatal sex determination, and fertility decline. Estimation of the degree of SRB imbalance is complicated because of unknown SRB reference levels and because of the uncertainty associated with SRB observations. There are needs for reproducible methods to construct SRB estimates with uncertainty, and to assess SRB inflation due to sex-selective abortion. We compile an extensive database from vital registration systems, censuses and surveys with 10,835 observations, and 16,602 country-years of information from 202 countries. We develop Bayesian methods for SRB estimation for all countries from 1950 to 2017. We model the SRB regional and national reference levels, the fluctuation around national reference levels, and the inflation. The estimated regional reference levels range from 1.031 (95% uncertainty interval [1.027; 1.036]) in sub-Saharan Africa to 1.063 [1.055; 1.072] in southeastern Asia, 1.063 [1.054; 1.072] in eastern Asia, and 1.067 [1.058; 1.077] in Oceania. We identify 12 countries with strong statistical evidence of SRB imbalance during 1970–2017, resulting in 23.1 [19.0; 28.3] million missing female births globally. The majority of those missing female births are in China, with 11.9 [8.5; 15.8] million, and in India, with 10.6 [8.0; 13.6] million.

HIV Risk and Adolescent Behaviors in Africa

2013 ◽  
Vol 103 (3) ◽  
pp. 433-438 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Case ◽  
Christina Paxson
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Activity ◽  
Hiv Risk ◽  
Health Surveys ◽  
Adolescent Behavior ◽  
Demographic And Health Surveys ◽  
Female Education ◽  
Premarital Sexual Activity ◽  
Premarital Sexual ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Over Time

We investigate the relationship between HIV, marriage and nonmarital sexual activity, with a focus on adolescent behaviors. We use data from 45 Demographic and Health Surveys to examine how adolescent behavior among women born from 1958 to 1965 are related to the subsequent spread of HIV over time. These women were adolescents during the early 1980s, a time when HIV had started to spread but the cause was still unknown. We find that areas with currently high HIV rates had greater female education and more premarital sexual activity in the cohorts that came of age before HIV was understood.

scholarly journals Delayed Registration and Identifying the “Missing Girls” in China

2016 ◽  
Vol 228 ◽  
pp. 1018-1038 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yaojiang Shi ◽  
John James Kennedy
Keyword(s):  
Sex Ratio ◽  
Policy Implementation ◽  
Census Data ◽  
Rural China ◽  
Descriptive Statistics ◽  
Sex Ratio At Birth ◽  
Selective Abortion ◽  
Late Registration ◽  
Cultural Approach ◽  
Sex Selective Abortion

AbstractIn 2010, according to the sixth Chinese census, the sex ratio at birth (SRB) was 118 males for every 100 females. The global SRB average is about 105. Thus, the gap between 118 and 105 is made up of “missing girls.” Scholars present three main explanations for the skewed SRB statistic: sex-selective abortion, infanticide and delayed or late registration. Most studies take a demographic and cultural approach to explain the high SRB. However, we believe the story of the “missing girls” is also an administrative one and adopt the street-level bureaucrat theory of policy implementation to explain the pervasiveness of late registration in rural China. We use descriptive statistics derived from the 1990, 2000 and 2010 census data to identify the “missing girls.” We believe the combination of late registration and unreported births may point to a larger proportion of “missing girls” than previously reported from the SRB statistic.

scholarly journals Globally Declining Population of Women Folk Causing Sex Imbalance Is a Serious Concern: An Analysis of Sex Ratio around the Globe

2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rajesh K. Gautam ◽  
Jyoti Jhariya ◽  
Pardeep Kumar
Keyword(s):  
Sex Ratio ◽  
Total Population ◽  
Natural Increase ◽  
Inequality Index ◽  
Selective Abortion ◽  
Inverse Effect ◽  
The World ◽  
Sex Selective Abortion ◽  
Males And Females ◽  
And Gender

Successful existence and perpetuation of any species depend on its reproductive success. In case of humans, the theoretical proportion of males and females should be 1 : 1, but this equilibrium was disturbed in many parts of the world. What are the determinants of sex imbalance in human should be found out to combat the problem. The data were gathered for 227 countries. The sex ratio for human population of the world was found 101 males for 100 females, but it varies from 74 to 219 among the countries. The number of countries having higher number of females as compared to males is 132, as they have 99 or less males per 100 females, whereas in 71 countries the total population of males is greater than the females. And only 24 countries have balanced sex ratio. Regression analysis shows that fertility, rate of natural increase, mortality, and gender inequality index have inverse effect, and they account for 24.4%, 23.1%, 18.8%, 18.9%, 16.3%, 16.1%, and 5.1% of variability, respectively. There is great need to identify such countries and region where sex selective abortion is being practiced and to find out appropriate strategies to combat such problem.

scholarly journals Sex-selective Abortion Bans are Not Associated with Changes in Sex Ratios at Birth in Illinois and Pennsylvania

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sital Kalantry
Keyword(s):  
Sex Ratio ◽  
Census Data ◽  
Sex Ratios ◽  
State Legislatures ◽  
The United States ◽  
Sex Selection ◽  
Sex Ratio At Birth ◽  
Selective Abortion ◽  
Sex Selective Abortion ◽  
Newborn Children

Legal prohibitions on sex-selective abortions are proliferating in the United States. Eight state legislatures have banned abortions sought on the basis of the sex of the fetus, 21 states have considered such laws since 2009, and a similar bill is pending in U.S. Congress. These laws have been introduced and enacted without any empirical data about their impact or effectiveness. Prior studies of U.S. Census data found sex ratios among foreign-born Chinese, Korean and Indian immigrants were skewed in favor of boys, but only in families where there were already one or two girls. Using the variation in the timing of bans in Illinois and Pennsylvania as natural experiments, we compare the pre-ban and post-ban sex ratios of certain Asian newborn children in these states over 12-year periods. We then compare these ratios with the sex ratios of Asian newborn children in neighboring states during the same period. We find that the bans in Illinois and Pennsylvania are not associated with any changes in sex ratios at birth among Asians. In Illinois and its neighboring states, the sex ratio at birth of Asian children was not male-biased during our study period. On the other hand, the sex ratio at birth among Asians in Pennsylvania and its neighboring states was skewed slightly in favor of boys, but the enactment of the ban did not normalize the sex ratio. This strongly suggests that sex-selective abortion bans have had no impact on the practice of sex selection, to the extent that it occurs, in these states. This finding is highly relevant to legislative and policy debates in the U.S. Congress and state legislatures where sex-selective abortion laws are being considered.Published: Sex-selective Abortion Bans are Not Associated with Changes in Sex Ratios at Birth in Illinois and Pennsylvania (with Arindam Nandi and Brian Citro), Forum on Health and Economic Policy, December 2014 (peer-reviewed journal).

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