Skewed Sex Ratio at Birth and Policy Response: Insights from selected Asian countries - Rahm, Laura
Prenatal sex selection has become a critical public policy concern in Asia. The practice of selectively aborting female fetuses has resulted in a severe demographic shift towards masculinization with over 117 million “missing” women in Asia today. Known factors of sex selection correspond to entrenched son preference, low fertility and access to new sex selection technologies. Potential consequences include increases in human trafficking, violence against women, forced marriages, marriage migrations, and political unrest. The policy response has been in most countries quite belated for reasons related to the lack of statistical confirmation or to political reluctance. But China, India, Nepal, South Korea, and Vietnam have all banned sex selective abortions and sex determination. Yet, despite these bans, sex ratio at birth (SRB) has increased or remains high in these countries. Additional public policies have been introduced to alter the status of women (gender mainstreaming, equity laws) and increase the perceived value of daughters (conditional cash transfers). There is now a large gamut of policy initiatives related to prenatal sex selection introduced in various countries or regions, but limited evidence on their overall impact on SRB trends. The objectives of the communication are 1) to analyze the characteristics of policies targeted to reduce sex selection, and 2) to examine existing tools to assess their effectiveness.
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