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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Affluence link to female foeticide

Affluence link to female foeticide

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published Published on May 25, 2011   modified Modified on May 25, 2011

-The Telegraph

 

India’s gains in literacy and prosperity are, contrary to expectations, driving an increase in the number of female foeticide cases with selective abortion after a first child highest in wealthy, educated households, says a study released today.

The study by a team of Indian and Canadian researchers has shown a steep decline in the ratio of girls to boys in India when the first-born child is a girl. And this decline is higher among educated and richer households than in illiterate and poorer homes.

The study, published in the journal Lancet, has also shown that 90 per cent of India’s people now live in states where the child sex ratio is below the natural expected level of 950 to 975 girls for every 1,000 boys.

It has found that when the first child is a boy, there was no fall in the girl-boy ratio. But when the first child is a girl, the sex ratio of second births declined from 906 girls per 1,000 boys in 1990 to 836 girls per 1,000 boys in 2005.

“The risk of selective abortion of girls is highest in families who already have one or two daughters and no sons,” said Prabhat Jha, the director of the Centre for Global Health Research at the University of Toronto, Canada, who led the study.

The study, which analysed population census data and tracked the birth history of about 250,000 births between 1990 and 2005 found that selective abortion of girls increased the most in educated households and in the richest 20 per cent of households.

The findings appear to defy expectations that with increasing literacy and income levels, parents would veer away from traditional preferences for sons. But researchers say they only reflect access to technology for sex determination.

“Between the rich and the poor, educated or not, the preference for son isn’t all that different but the educated and wealthy are able to access ultrasound scans (equipment that are typically used for prenatal sex determination)” said Jha.

The study has shown a steady increase in selective abortion of female foetuses — from an average of 1 million in the 1980s to 2.6 million in the 1990s to 4.5 million over the past decade.

Public health experts believe these findings reflect parents’ response to the government’s campaigns for a small family as well as highlight India’s failure to prevent its doctors from providing illegal prenatal sex determination services.

“Parents are letting nature decide about the first-born but for the second-born child, they’re saying to themselves: ‘if there’s technology, why shouldn’t we use it to determine family composition’,” said S.V. Subramanian, associate professor at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, who was not connected with the study. “And the medical community is willing to oblige (them),” Subramanian told The Telegraph.

Although the study did not spot any evidence of selective abortion of first-born female foetuses, its findings have prompted researchers to speculate that selective abortion of first-born female foetuses may increase if fertility drops further.

That might portend a further drop in child sex ratio in the coming years.

“We have a law (against prenatal sex determination) but it is not being implemented,” said Rajesh Kumar, head of the school of public health at the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, and study co-author.

Doctors in India who have campaigned against sex selection have in the past criticised the government and law enforcement authorities for not rigorously implementing the law.


The Telegraph, 24 May, 2011, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1110525/jsp/nation/story_14027015.jsp


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