Ratio of girls to boys in India continues to decline

The continuous decline in numbers of girls in the age group 0-6 years compared with boys in several states has shocked demographers in India and has made policy makers sit up and take notice. A new report, Missing, released by the United Nations Population Fund on 20 October, maps the adverse sex ratio among children.

India's population stood at 1.03 billion on 1 March 2001, having risen 21% between 1991 and 2001. "What did not rise, but rather declined shockingly, was the sex ratio," says the report.

The sex ratio, calculated as number of girls per 1000 boys in the 0-6 age group, declined from 945 girls per 1000 boys in the 1991 census to 927 during the 2001 census.

Figure 1.

This girl from Delhi will be part of a minority group when she grows up. The number of girls aged 0-6 per 1000 boys in that age group has declined from 976 in 1961 to 927 in 2001

Credit: P VIROT/WHO

These latest falls come on top of a steady decline during the 1960s, '70s and '80s. The ratio fell from 976 in 1961 to 964 in 1971 and to 962 in 1981.

"A stage may soon come where it would become extremely difficult, if not impossible, to make up for the missing girls," says François Farah, country representative of the UN Population Fund. "Today we are at a stage where many villages are having fewer or no small daughters and... the resulting imbalance can destroy the social and human fabric," he added.

In 2001, four states—Punjab, Haryana, Himachal, and Gujarat—fell into the category of having fewer than 800 girls per 1000 boys for the first time. In Punjab the decline was in 10 of the 17 districts, whereas in Haryana state almost all districts recorded fewer than 850 girls. In Fatehgarh, in Punjab, the number of girls declined to 754 per 1000 boys.

Explanations for this phenomenon include the traditional Indian penchant for a male son—who supports the parents in old age and performs their last rites during cremation—whereas females are considered a burden and a liability on whom the parents have to spend huge amounts as "dowry" for getting married.

Mira Shiva, director of women's health at the Voluntary Health Association of India, a leading health non-governmental organisation, blames the epidemic of killing female fetuses in the womb on the widespread availability and affordability of ultrasound machines, which are used for sex determination of the fetus. Mothers then proceed to have a termination if the fetus is found to be female.

Despite legislation, sex determination tests have continued and have spread rapidly even to remote areas. The number of ultrasound machines in India is now estimated to be nearly 100 000, say Mira Shiva and demographer Ashish Bose in a detailed study of abortion of female fetuses published in August.

"Involvement of the medical community in this criminal activity indulged in by parents of the unborn child and the doctors is 100%," says Dr Puneet Bedi, independent health activist and gynaecologist. The "missing girls" essentially means that millions of medical consultations and abortions have taken place with the active connivance of the medical community, who make a quick buck out of them, says Dr Bedi.