India's Worsening Sex Ratio

February’s national census shows that the infant sex ratio in India is steadily getting worse and can be compared to that of China, who has one of the worst ratios in the world because of its child bearing laws. Though the census numbers may be somewhat skewed the overall trend shows that the sex ratio has been worsening for decades. Much of this issue is the byproduct of dowries in India.

Though illegal, it is a thriving industry motored by increased competition for scarce women. Many actions have become of this terrible trend in India including: a relatively high female abortion rate, many families are selling their daughters to a dalal, or broker, who will then ship the girls to potential suitors in other areas, and it encourages female trafficking, abuse, and sometimes death.

One would reason that a shortage of women would increase the value of women in India, but we have yet to see that occur. Rather we see an Indian economy that is emerging and thus dowries are becoming increasingly expensive and leaking into areas where dowries were typically absent. Unfortunately, the trend shows that economic success lies in areas where the son preference is highest. This is causing other, more neutral areas, to adopt the idea more readily.

These trends may be increasing at a decreasing rate of late, but for women in India this is a terrible situation that has yet to see a reliable decline. It will be interesting to see how this trend reacts as the country increasingly becomes more urbanized in its attempt to become more Americanized, for lack of better term.

By Tommy Walker