The aversion to having daughters in India and China has led to an alarming situation, where there just aren’t enough brides.
Neither India nor China are strangers to the phenomenon of gender discrimination and prenatal sex determination. Both have been, for a while now, sitting on a demographic tinderbox caused by gender imbalance.
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Given their similarly dire sex ratios at birth, here are five facts that the Asian giants need to worry about:
1. Skewed Sex Ratio
As per the 2011 census, India’s sex ratio was 940 females per 1000 males. In 2001, the male-female ratio stood at 933:1000 – which means it increased by 7 points till the 2011 Census.
China’s sex ratio by the end of 2014 was 100 per 105.06 male.
2. Too Many Men
A UN report noted that India’s declining child sex ratio from 983 to 918 women per 1000 men between 1951 and 2011 has reached emergency proportions. In 2011, India had 35 million more men than women.
In China too, women gave birth to 116 boys for every 100 girls in 2014. In fact, China now has 33 million more men than women. An average sex ratio at birth is 105 males for every 100 females.
3. Marriage Squeeze
In China, the ratio of marriageable men to women would be 186 for every 100 single Chinese women by 2050-54, according to calculations by Christophe Guilmoto of the Institute of Development Research – a Paris based think-tank.
Operating on the same estimates, there would be 191 single Indian men for every 100 women by 2060-64.
4. Low Fertility Rate
A report in The Economist notes that countries with normal sex ratios also experienced a marriage squeeze, if their fertility rates (number of children a woman might bear in her lifetime) are declining.
Research shows that Chinese fertility rates are lower than they are required to balance out the population. In 2013, fertility rate stood at 1.7, one of the lowest in the world. A fertility rate of 2.1, leads to the population stabilising.
5. Policy Paralysis
A 2013 study by United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) found that laws to check gender discrimination and son preference in India were often ineffective. The study noted that bans on child marriage, prenatal sex selection tests and dowries were poorly enforced.
In China, a state-mandated draconian one-child policy – imposed since 1979 – has now outlived its usefulness. Also, China’s strong cultural imperative for male offspring has escalated the gender imbalance.
In fact by 2050, there would be 60 million more men who are looking to marry in China and India than women. Laws have clearly failed to check sex determination tests and gender discrimination in both the countries.
Changes in sex composition largely reflect the underlying socio-economic and cultural patterns of a society in different ways. We need to make a broader cultural shift that values the lives of girls and women.
‘Save the girl child’ now before it’s too late.
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