Amartya Sen set off a debate in development economics when he estimated that there are 100 million ‘missing women’ in the world, referring to the magnitude of female survival disadvantage due to unequal treatment in the intra-household allocation of
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In case of separate pooled least square estimation for rural and urban for the recent two decadal figures, literacy rate is found insignificant in determining child sex ratio. However, female labour force participation is inversely related to the relative survival disadvantage of girls. The problem of multicollinearity between female literacy rate and female labour force participation rate is not severe as female literacy rate explains only 14 per cent of female labour force participation rate. Table 9: Panel Estimation for 0-6 Age Cohort Sex Ratio (Rural)
The analysis revealed that regression coeffients of urban panel is worse than rural panel for female labour force participation rate. In urban India, one per cent rise in female economic activity rate induce the worsening of juvenile sex ratio by 0.08 points, while same coefficient for rural India at 0.05 percentage points. The pattern of gender discrimination is more severe in urban India and it may get accentuated through technological advancements in terms of sex determination tests and sex selective abortions. Table 10: Panel Estimation for 0-6 Age Cohort Sex Ratio (Urban)
The literacy rate is found insignificant in urban and rural panel data analysis. It may because of the fact that through it is growing at faster pace, the levels of female literacy is still very low in India. More than half of Indian women are still illiterate. The policy conclusion is that improving literacy and economic value of woman is necessary but not sufficient for enhancing the quality of life of women. V. Conclusion In the backdrop of alarming magnitude of missing women due to unequal treatment in the intrahousehold allocation of survival related commodities, the paper examined the intertemporal and spatial trends and socioeconomic determinants of the spatial variations in the relative neglect of girl child in India. Using fixed effects model of pooled least squares for the last four decennial census data across fifteen major states in India, the paper revealed that higher socio-economic characteristics (female literacy, female work force participation and economic growth) has not been translated effectively in terms of containing the female sustenance and survival disadvantage. Even the economic growth showed an inverse relation with the juvenile sex ratio. The disaggregated panel data analysis by geographic units revealed that higher juvenile sex ratio is not an isolated phenomenon of rural India; rather the matter is dismal in urban units. It is alarming to note that sex ratio of age cohort 0-6 is inversely related to female education and female economic activity rate with relatively higher elasticity coefficients for urban India; catalyzed by the spread of sex determination tests and sex selective abortions, which played a key role in worsening the juvenile sex ratio. The spatial spillover effects associated with either geographic delineation or aggregation of States in terms of juvenile sex ratio is controlled in the models, however the spatial dependence of the phenomenon was found insignificant. The argument that economic value of women increases their bargaining power in the intrahousehold decision making and the hypothesis of ‘women’s agency and empowerment’ through higher educational attainment and participation in economic activity may not be refuted as the econometric results depicted an inverse relationship between labour force participation and juvenile sex ratio. Rather, the aggregate evidence could be interpreted as that improving female education and female labour force participation rate in the recent years has not translated effectively in terms of bettering the relative life chances of girls, reflecting their relative neglect in the intrahousehold. The monotonic decline in the juvenile sex ratio over the last four decades despite the improving socioeconomic characteristics reinforces the existence of gender discriminatory practices which starts even before birth; which requires urgent attention of public policy, as improving literacy and economic value of woman is necessary but not sufficient for enhancing the relative life chances of girl child. Selected References Anselin, L.(1988): “Spatial econometrics, methods and models”, Dordrecht; Kluwer Academic. Bardhan, P. (1974): “On life and death questions”, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol.9 (32-34), pp. 1293-1304. Bardhan, P. (1988): “ Sex disparity in child survival in rural India”, Columbia University Press, New York, pp .473-480. Basu, A.M.(1992): “Culture, the Status of Women, and Demographic Behavior.Oxford, UK;Oxford University Press. Berik, G. and Bilginsoy, C. (2000): “ Type of Work Matters: Women’s Labor Force Participation and the Child Sex Ratio in Turkey”, World Development, Vol. 28, No. 5, pp. 861-878 Case, A.C. (1991): “ Spatial patterns in household demand”, Econometrica, Vol.59, No.4, pp. 953-965. Chen, L.C. , Huq, E. and D’Souza, S.(1981): “Sex bias of food and health care in rural Bangladesh”, Population and Development Review, Vol.7, No.1 pp. 55-70 Coale, A. (1991): ”Excess Female Mortality and the Balance of the Sexes”, Population and Development Review, Vol.17, No.3, pp. 517-523. D’Souza, S. and Lincoln C. Chen (1980): “Sex Differences in Mortality in Rural Bangladesh”, Population and Development Review, Vol.6, pp. 257-270. Das Gupta, M. (1987): “Selective discrimination against female children in rural Punjab, India”, Population and Development Review, Vol.13, No.1, pp. 77-100. Fossett, M.A. and Kiecolt, K.J. (1991): “A methodological review of the sex ratio; alternatives for comparative research”, Journal of marriage and the family, Vol. 53, No.4, pp. 941-957. Goodkind, D. (1996): “On Substituting Sex Preference Strategies in East Asia; Does prenatal sex selection reduce postnatal discrimination?”, Population and Development Review, Vol.22, pp. 111-125 Hill, K. and Dawn, U.(1995): “ Gender differences in child health; Evidence from the Demographic and Health Surveys.”, Population and Development Review, Vol.21, pp. 127-151. Klasen, S. (1994): “ Missing Women; Reconsidered”, World Development, Vol.22, No. 7, pp. 1061-1071 Klasen, S. and Wink C. (2003): “ Missing Women; Revisiting the Debate”, Feminist Economics, Vol.9 (2-3), pp. 263-299 Kynch, J. and Sen, A. (1983): “Indian Women; well being and survival”, Cambridge Journal of Economics, Vol. 7 (3-4), pp.363-380. Miller, B.D (1989): “ Changing patterns of Juvenile Sex Ratios in Rural India, 1961 to 1971”, Economic and Political Weekly, pp. 1229-1236 Murthi, M., Guio, A.C.and Dreze, J. (1995): “Mortality, fertility and gender bias in India: a district level analysis”, Population and Development Review, Vol.21, No.4, pp. 745-782. Park, C.B. and Cho, N.(1995): “Consequence of Son Preference in a Low Fertility Society; Imbalance of the Sex Ratio at Birth in Korea”, Population and Development Review, Vol.21, No.1 pp. 59-84. Population Foundation of India: “ Sex Determination and Female Foeticide”, A status paper; Prepared for Advocacy Workshops on the Issue of Female Foeticide. Sen, A. and Sengupta, S. (1983): “Malnutrition of Rural Children and Sex Bias”, Economic and Political Weekly, pp. 855-863 Sen, A.K.(1989): “Women’s survival as a development problem”, Bulletin of American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. 18, No.2 Sundari and Thombre, M.: “ Declining Sex Ratio; An Analysis with special reference to Tamil Nadu State”, The Indian Economic Journal, Vol. 43, No. 4, pp. 30-55 Visaria, P.M. (1969): “The sex ratio of the population of India”, Census of India 1961, 1,Monograph No.10, Office of the Registrar General, India, New Delhi * The authors are respectively Senior Economist and Project Associate at National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, India. This is revised version of the paper accepted for presentation in IAFFE Conference at University of Sydney, Australia with funding from Ford Foundation, July 7-9, 2006. Special thanks are due to Professor Radhika Balakrishnan of Marymount Manhattan College for the formative discussion of the paper during GEM-IWG Course on ‘Engendering Macroeconomics and International Economics’ at University of Utah, USA. The usual disclaimer applies. Email: lekha@nipfp.org.in ; darshy@nipfp.org.in 1 ‘Missing women’ refers to the deviation of actual sex ratio from the expected sex ratio. It is far from a minor issue, but ranks among the worst human catastrophes of twentieth century as it is larger than the combined casualties of all famines in the twentieth century and it also exceeds the combined death toll of both world wars and the casualties of major epidemics such as the 1918-1920 global influenza epidemic or the currently ongoing AIDS pandemic (Klasen and Claudia, 2003). Refer Table 1 for latest estimates on missing women. 2 One may argue that sex selective abortions are more problematic as it leads to death (or prevention of female life) with certainty, while female neglect in intrahousehold only increases the chance of female mortality. On the other hand, one may argue that sex selective abortions are somewhat less evil, as one should distinguish between pre-birth and post-birth interventions, with the latter usually judged worse than the former (Goodkind, 1996 and Klasen, 2003). However, the phenomena of ‘missing women’ points to the fact that gender discrimination starts even before birth and it continues in all stages of life cycle. 3 Berik and Bilginsoy (2000) for this reason used general literacy rate rather than female literacy rate in their model. We have two sets of models, one with general literacy rate and other with female literacy rate. Yüklə 0,8 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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