Social Class Variations in Gender-Specific Juvenile Mortality in Rural India

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This award will allow the PI to analyze secondary data pertaining to the sex ratio (girls versus boys) in the Northern plains region of India. There is a scarcity of girls relative to boys in this region, while proportions of the sexes in southern and eastern India are more nearly equal. The PI has published statistical analyses of comparable data but recent research by other scholars, at the national as well as the local level in India, has shed additional light on patterns and causes of the son preference/daughter disfavor complex. The most compelling issue pertains to class differences. The PI has argued that in rural North India propertied groups discriminate more heavily against daughters than unpropertied groups. Others argue that daughter disfavor is the result of poverty and thus is more prominent in lower social strata. The research will explore class patterns and their determinants through analysis of recent census data and information in ethnographic sources. This research is important because the causes of parental preferences for girls or boys in peasant societies have significant potential effect on world population patterns.