The latest study by the Pew Research Center has pointed out that “son bias” is on the decline in India as the average annual number of baby girls “missing” in the country fell from 480,000 (4.8 lakh) in 2010 to 410,000 (4.1 lakh) in 2019.
Key highlights
- According to its report titled ‘India’s sex ratio at birth begin to normalise’, the number of boys born for every 100 girls has come down in both states — to 111 (Punjab) and 112 (Haryana) in 2019-21 from around 127 (in both) in 2001.
- The “missing” refers to how many more female births would have occurred during this time if there were no female-selective abortions.
- Among the major religions, the biggest reduction in sex selection seems to be among the groups that previously had the greatest gender imbalances, particularly among Sikhs.
- India legalised abortion in 1971, but the trend of sex selection started picking up in the 1980s due to the introduction of ultrasound scan technology.
- In the 1970s, India’s sex ratio was at par with the global average of 105-100, but this widened to 108 boys per 100 girls in the early 1980s, and reached 110 boys per 100 girls in the 1990s.
- From a large imbalance of about 111 boys per 100 girls in India’s 2011 census, the sex ratio at birth appears to have normalised slightly over the last decade, narrowing to about 109 in the 2015-16 wave of the National Family Health Survey and to 108 boys in the latest wave of the NFHS, conducted from 2019-21.
- Between 2000 and 2019, nine crore female births went “missing” because of female-selective abortions.
- In the 2001 census, Sikhs had a sex ratio at birth of 130 males per 100 females, far exceeding that year’s national average of 110. By the 2011 census, the Sikh ratio had narrowed to 121 boys per 100 girls. It now hovers around 110, about the same as the ratio of males to females at birth among the country’s Hindu majority (109).
- Both Christians (105 boys to 100 girls) and Muslims (106 boys to 100 girls) have sex ratios close to the natural norm, and this trend is holding.
- The study points out that while the Sikhs make up less than 2% of the Indian population, they accounted for an estimated 5%, or approximately 440,000 (4.4 lakh), of the nine crore baby girls who went “missing” in India between 2000 and 2019.
- The share of “missing” girls among Hindus is above their respective population share.
- The study divides India into six zones based on geographical factors — north, east, west, south, central, and northeast.
- The Pew report shows that in the north India— comprising Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, and the Union territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh — the sex ratio at birth has been narrowing, to an average of 111 boys for every 100 girls in 2019-21 from 118 boys in 2001.
- On the other hand, the ratio widened in the five southern states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Karnataka — to 108 boys for every 100 girls in 2019-21 from 106 in 2001.
