A study shows that India could see about 6.8 million fewer female births between 2017 and 2030 because of sex-selective abortions.
The PLOS ONE study from Fengqing Chao at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Thuwal, Saudi Arabia, and her colleagues said there is an “intensity of son preference” in the Indian culture, The Christian Post reports.
“The masculinized SBR (sex birth ratio) for India is a direct result of the practice of sex-selective abortions at the national level,” the paper, titled “Probabilistic projection of the sex ratio at birth and missing female births by State and Union Territory in India.”
“Some states, such as Punjab, have experienced an early and rapid rise in birth masculinity since the 1980s, whereas in North Indian states, the masculinized SBR started to increase later.”
The Uttar Pradesh area could lose the most female births with researchers estimating about 2 million less from 2017 to 2030.
“Our study highlights the need to strengthen policies that advocate for gender equity and the introduction of support measures to counteract existing gender biases that adequately target each regional context,” they concluded.
“Future work may include additional sources of heterogeneity, such as education, religion, and ethnicity, for projecting the SBR in India and extending the SBR predictions for longer-term…
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