Amartya Sen, the Nobel economics laureate, wrote 20 years ago of “missing women”. By this, he meant the imbalance between the sexes in the population statistics of parts of Asia. It is especially acute in India, and it is intensifying. Provisional census figures for this vast country show that for every 1,000 boys under the age of 6, there are only 914 girls. At the previous census, in 2001, the ratio was 1,000 boys to 927 girls.
The imbalance is a disturbing phenomenon. It derives from an enduring cultural preference for male heirs, combined with the development of modern technology. Parents can now determine much earlier in pregnancy the sex of their offspring. That knowledge has spurred sexselective abortions and infanticide.
The statistics would shock in any circumstances. They are still more sobering in a country that is rapidly getting richer. Beneath India’s economic development is a self-reinforcing pattern of female disadvantage. The literacy and labour participation rates for women in urban India are around 24 per cent (compared with more than 70 per cent in China). Poor economic prospects for women confirm parents in their preference for boys. This in turn stores up problems such as an increase in crime rates among the young.
There is nothing ordained about this pattern. South Korea also used to have a severe sex imbalance. It narrowed as social norms changed. Public health campaigns may yet prove similarly effective in India. But the evidence so far is depressing.
The sex disparity is far from being a demographic detail. Its consequences are worse than a threat to social stability, welfare and growth. This is a campaign against girls, and a denial of justice.