Sex-selective abortion

World map of birth sex ratios, 2012
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Sex-selective abortion is the practice of terminating a pregnancy based upon the predicted sex of the infant. The selective abortion of female fetuses is most common where male children are valued over female children, especially in parts of East Asia and South Asia (particularly in countries such as People's Republic of China, India and Pakistan), as well as in the Caucasus, Western Balkans, and to a lesser extent North America.[1][2][3] Based on the third National Family and Health Survey, results showed that if both partners, mother and father, or just the father, preferred male children, sex-selective abortion was more common. In cases where only the mother prefers sons, this is likely to result in sex-selective neglect in which the child is not likely to survive past infancy.[4]

Sex-selective abortion was first documented in 1975,[5] and became commonplace by the late 1980s in South Korea and China and around the same time or slightly later in India.

Sex-selective abortion affects the human sex ratio—the relative number of males to females in a given age group,[6][7] with China and India, the two most populous countries of the world, having unbalanced gender ratios. Studies and reports focusing on sex-selective abortion are predominantly statistical; they assume that birth-sex ratio—the overall ratio of boys and girls at birth—for a regional population is an indicator of sex-selective abortion. This assumption has been questioned by some scholars.[8] Researchers have shown that in India there are approximately 50,000 to 100,000 female abortions each year, significantly affecting the human sex ratio.[9]

Recent studies have expanded the understanding of this issue by quantifying trends in conditional sex ratios (CSRs) among Asian diaspora populations in Australia, Canada, the UK, and the US, showing that sex selection practices have persisted among diaspora communities from 1999 to 2019.[10] Research into the past four decades of sex-selective abortions in China highlights the significant role these practices have played in shaping the country's demographic profile, despite challenges in estimating exact numbers due to underreporting and the controversial level of sex ratio at birth (SRB).[11]

According to demographic scholarship, the expected birth-sex ratio range is 103 to 107 males to 100 females at birth.[12][13][14]

  1. ^ Goodkind D (1999). "Should Prenatal Sex Selection be Restricted?: Ethical Questions and Their Implications for Research and Policy". Population Studies. 53 (1): 49–61. doi:10.1080/00324720308069. JSTOR 2584811.
  2. ^ Gettis A, Getis J, Fellmann JD (2004). Introduction to Geography (Ninth ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill. p. 200. ISBN 0-07-252183-X.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference czgparis was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Robitaille MC, Chatterjee I (January 2, 2018). "Sex-selective Abortions and Infant Mortality in India: The Role of Parents' Stated Son Preference". The Journal of Development Studies. 54 (1): 47–56. doi:10.1080/00220388.2016.1241389. ISSN 0022-0388. S2CID 42247421. Archived from the original on September 3, 2023. Retrieved March 16, 2022.
  5. ^ Hvistendahl M (November 2, 2015). "China's New Birth Rule Can't Restore Missing Women and Fix a Population". Scientific American. Archived from the original on January 22, 2019. Retrieved September 7, 2018.
  6. ^ Kumm J, Laland KN, Feldman MW (December 1994). "Gene-culture coevolution and sex ratios: the effects of infanticide, sex-selective abortion, sex selection, and sex-biased parental investment on the evolution of sex ratios". Theoretical Population Biology. 46 (3): 249–278. Bibcode:1994TPBio..46..249K. doi:10.1006/tpbi.1994.1027. PMID 7846643.
  7. ^ Gammage J (June 21, 2011). "Gender imbalance tilting the world toward men". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Archived from the original on April 9, 2016. Retrieved June 27, 2013.
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference James_2008 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ Cite error: The named reference Nandi_2015 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  10. ^ Meh C, Jha P (September 2022). Franco E, Gerland P (eds.). "Trends in female-selective abortion among Asian diasporas in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia". eLife. 11: e79853. doi:10.7554/eLife.79853. PMC 9514843. PMID 36165452.
  11. ^ Mei L, Jiang Q (March 3, 2022). Sex-selective Abortions Over the Past Four Decades in China (Report). In Review. doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-1392935/v1. Archived from the original on April 11, 2024. Retrieved March 5, 2024.
  12. ^ "Report of the International Workshop on Skewed Sex Ratios at Birth" (PDF). United Nations FPA. 2012. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 11, 2014.
  13. ^ Kraemer S (December 23, 2000). "The fragile male". BMJ. 321 (7276): 1609–1612. doi:10.1136/bmj.321.7276.1609. PMC 1119278. PMID 11124200.
  14. ^ Chao F, Gerland P, Cook AR, Alkema L (May 2019). "Systematic assessment of the sex ratio at birth for all countries and estimation of national imbalances and regional reference levels". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 116 (19): 9303–9311. Bibcode:2019PNAS..116.9303C. doi:10.1073/pnas.1812593116. PMC 6511063. PMID 30988199.