The World's "Missing Women"

The world faces a shift from young to old   Getty Images

"Fewer-than-expected females in a population could result in elevated levels of antisocial behavior and violence, and may ultimately affect long-term stability and social sustainable development."

"A broader objective relates to the need to influence gender norms, which lie at the core of harmful practices such as prenatal sex selection. This calls for broader legal frameworks to ensure gender equality."

Study conclusions

 

"While the [sex ratio at birth] is projected to decline in some countries, we also provide a more extreme scenario — that [sex ratios] inflate in other countries, such as Pakistan and Nigeria."

"Hence, we still need to monitor the possible emergence of imbalanced sex ratio at birth after 2020."

Dr. Fengqing Chao, statistician, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Makkah, Saudi Arabia

 

"[The figures come as no surprise] It will take time to remove deep-rooted custom and belief."

"Progress is slow and incremental but we are working on making girls valued and cherished instead of being seen as a liability who need a huge dowry to be married off."

Anuradha Saxena, member, women’s empowerment division, Sikar district, Rajasthan, India

Children from Anvi village in the Jalna district of Maharashtra, where the ratio of girls to boys has worsened since the 2001 census. Photograph: Sattish Bate/Hindustan Times

Dr.Chao is co-author of a new study which reaches the conclusion that men, by the year 2100, could outnumber women in a third of the world, the result of unwanted girls deliberately aborted or killed as well as girls dying as a result of inadequate health care and nutrition. Her predictive models were developed in conjunction with scientists at the United Nations Population Division in New York, the National University of Singapore, the Centre de Sciences Humaines in New Delhi and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, projections based on a database incorporating 3.26 billion birth records out of 204 countries.

Published in the journal BMJ Global Health, the study estimates that the number of "missing women" is likely to rise by a further 4.7 million by 2030 -- 50 and 43 percent of these occurring in China and India, respectively. Both countries where culturally, boys are more valued than girls and the tendency is to celebrate the birth of boys and bemoan girls' birth. Both countries are well known to have long since identified the disparity in gender numbers, both have enacted legislation outlawing gender-selective abortions.

In addition, 17 countries -- primarily in sub-Saharan Africa -- also are at grave risk of developing a sex imbalance whose result would be that men would vastly outnumber women in various countries which account for a third of the world's population, in eighty years' time. That cultural preference for male babies has resulted in a skewed newborn ratio in a dozen countries; only three of which -- South Korea, Georgia and Hong Kong -- have taken meaningful steps to correct the situation.

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An economist from India, Amartya Sen, published an important essay in 1990 where it was revealed that about 100 million "missing women" upset the worldwide balance resulting from decades of infanticide. The inevitable will occur on a broad spectrum worldwide, one that China and India already face, where eligible young women are in scarce supply and men search fruitlessly for a possible marriage match. Women fewer in number by far also have other options; prioritizing careers over marriage and motherhood, and/or biding their time until the 'perfect' match appears.

"Missing women" is set to come in conflict with "marriage squeeze" where "elevated levels of anti-social behaviour and violence" on the part of unattached and resentful young males may be triggered by their inability to find a marriage partner, settle down and begin families of their own.