Girls Wanted: The influence of public policies on prenatal sex selection. A PhD research presentation - Rahm, Laura
For over twenty years sex ratio at birth has been gradually rising in many Asian countries due to an increase in sex-selective abortions. Over 117 million women are “missing” in Asia today. There have been numerous debates about the lasting effects of this surplus of male births and future implications seem worrisome for the countries concerned. Many governments are trying to influence the demographics of their population to curb the high sex ratio that will affect their populations for decades to come. However, there is currently no in-depth analysis on how public policies affect prenatal sex selection. The PhD project aims at understanding the logic, the instruments and the impact of public policies against prenatal sex selection in selected Asian countries. Vietnam, India and South Korea serve as case studies for a comparative policy analysis. The guiding research question is: which public policies have been introduced and how effective have they been in curbing skewed sex ratio at birth? The project examines the instruments of population policies that were introduced over the last two decades to tackle sex selection, such as public campaigns, sex selection bans, women empowerment and gender mainstreaming programs, conditional cash transfers (CCTs) to families with girls. It also examines the strategy these instruments are based on along with the monitoring tools in place to evaluate their relative effectiveness (policy outcome). National demographics, namely sex ratio at birth (SRB) data from 1990 to today, are used for the quantitative analysis. The aim is to map policy initiatives and SRB trends to identify changes over time, pinpointing whether or not policies contributed to a decrease in SRB (impact). Semi-structured expert interviews with politicians, demographers, medical personal and representatives of international organizations give additional information highlighting strength and weaknesses of policies and their implementation. Up to date research suggests that sex selection bans and CCTs have shown limited success in curbing sex imbalances; more promising but long-term mechanisms are women empowerment and gender equity programs. Particular emphasis will be placed on the extent to which women's rights, monitoring of interventions and cooperation between the different parties (couples, medical community, NGOs and governments) need to be strengthened to ensure that public policies can effectively balance sex ratio at birth and prevent sex selection.
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