แWHERE HAVE ALL THE GIRLS GONE?
In the early 1990s, The New York times ran a provocative headline: “Stark Data on Women: 100 Million Are Missing.”1 The main idea was straightforward: demographics suggested that there should be far more women on the planet than there actually were, particularly in Asia. If boys and girls are born at roughly equal rate (with nature slightly favoring boys at birth because they are more prone to die before reaching sexual maturity), then censuses around the globe were turning up some 100 million fewer women than nature intended. Why?
The short answer is that discrimination against girls can literally kill them. Females, particularly in the populous nations of India and China, are more likely than boys to be aborted during pregnancy, killed at birth, or neglected during childhood in ways that cause death. The longer answer- the one that gets at the source of this fatal discrimination requires an understanding of the powerful incentives that create a preference for boys in certain societies. In China, India, and many other developing countries, girls are more expensive to a family than boys and provide fewer long-term benefits.
In rural India and China, for example, boys are more helpful with manual labor. Men also provide an important form of social insurance, since boy eventually provide for their parents in old age. When a man marries, he brings his wife to live with his family; girls, therefore, require the expense of upbringing only to leave upon marriage to join their husband’s family.
In India, the disparity is compounded by the tradition of a dowry, payment from the bride’s family to the groom’s family upon marriage. Dowries have been illegal for decades but are still common practice and can easily be disguised as a gift. A typical dowry can amount to several years of household earnings.
China amplified the incentive to meddle with nature by implementing a strict “one child” policy in 1979 in order to restrain rapid population growth