Boy-centric decisions skew sex ratio ….Anahita Mukherji
People With Fewer Kids Are Choosy About Gender Of Their Child
People With Fewer Kids Are Choosy About Gender Of Their Child
Mumbai: Female infanticide,foeticide and a general neglect of the girl child arent the only ways to skew Indias child sex ratio,which now stands at an abysmal 914 girls to 1,000 boys in the 0-6 age group.The desire to have a male child and the ensuing behaviour patterns have also contributed towards Indias poor child sex ratio.
The phenomenon is popularly described by academicians and population experts as the Differential Stopping Rule Behaviour,and is largely seen in a society with falling fertility rates,where people have fewer children and are more particular about the gender of the child they give birth to.
According to the Differential Stopping Rule Behaviour,parents who want a single male child and get one wont try for another child,but if such parents have a girl,they might want to try for another child in the hope that they get a boy.Similarly,parents who want two children,a girl and a boy,and end up with two boys,may not have another child,but if such a family ends up with two girls,they may opt to have another child in the hope that they get a boy.
There are several instances where families with two or three daughters keep trying for a male child while a family with the same number of sons wont try for a girl, said P Arokiasamy,acting director of the International Institute of Population Sciences,Mumbai.He says that while the Differential Stopping Rule Behaviour is a theoretical concept,its effects can well be seen in practice.
Arokiasamy points to the fact that such behaviour patterns themselves result in an imbalance between the sexes,and result in excess male children in society without resorting to sex-selective abortions or discrimination after birth.
This behaviour,says Harish Sadani,a founder member of Men Against Violence and Abuse,is the result of a deeprooted preference for the male child in a patriarchal society where girls are treated as liabilities and boys like assets.
This mindset is the outcome of the privileges given to men coupled with the restrictions on a woman, he adds.Sadani points to the fact that this very same mindset pushes parents to go in for a sonography,which often leads to sex-selective abortions.
In short,sons are perceived to provide support to their parents,both before and after marriage,while daughters move on to their husbands families and provide very little economic and emotional support.Daughters are considered a net drain on parental resources in patrilinear and patriarchal communities.More importantly,in the Hindu religious tradition,sons are needed for the cremation of deceased parents in order to provide a safe passage from this world to the next, writes Arokiasamy in a research paper on Indias sex ratio.
Times View
While on one hand,India has leapfrogged into the twenty-first century with its prowess in science and technology,not to mention its emerging economy,at0titudes towards women have remained medieval.While a great deal has been written about sex determination and sex selective abortions,population science experts have shown that the very preference for a male child has resulted in behaviour patterns that create a further imbalance in the countrys already skewed gender ratio.Its time we learn to value our daughters as much as our sons,as no society in the world can call itself developed when it continues to shun the girl child.