SEXRATIO - Natural Sex Ratios at Birth and Missing Women: New Evidence and Implications

SEXRATIO - 出生时的自然性别比例和失踪妇女：新证据和启示

• 批准号: EP/Y031172/1
• 负责人: Joshua Wilde
• 金额: $ 208.65万
• 依托单位: University of Oxford
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP%2FY031172%2F1
• 关键词: SEXRATIO; Natural; Sex; Ratios; Birth

Explaining variation in sex-ratios at birth (SRBs) has been a fascination of social scientists since the 1600s. It is also a priority for policy makers, as changes in SRBs often indicate sex-selective abortion and discrimination against women and girls. Over the past 50 years, a general consensus among demographers has emerged, that sex ratios at birth are mostly constant at 105 male births per 100 females across groups, with only small variations by race or ethnicity. Recently however, a new biological literature suggests that maternal condition may induce male conceptions to be lost at higher rates. These two literatures are in direct contradiction to each other, as the biological literature suggests that chronic indicators of maternal stress should be associated with heterogeneous SRBs, which is generally not found in large population datasets.This project proposes a novel explanation for this contradiction. Specifically, the PI documents that all previous analyses fail to properly control for time-invariant heterogeneity in maternal condition, and develops a new methodology to do so. Once implemented, the PI demonstrates that this new methodology confirms that maternal condition changes of SRBs, challenging the scientific consensus on the constancy of SRBs and reconciling the contradictory findings of these literatures.This project has three main goals. In Project 1, the PI seeks to investigate these preliminary findings across various countries and settings, thereby establishing a new scientific consensus on the effect of socioeconomic status on SRBs. Project 2 utilizes the new methodology to refine global estimates of the number of missing women by providing new country-level estimates. In Project 3, we seek to reconcile various long-standing puzzles in the literature on SRBs, socioeconomic factors, and maternal stress, including changing sex ratios during and after wars, economic downturns, and across racial groups.

自17世纪以来，解释出生性别比（SRB）的变化一直是社会科学家的魅力。这也是决策者的一个优先事项，因为工代机构的变化往往表明针对胎儿性别进行选择性堕胎以及对妇女和女童的歧视。在过去的50年里，人口统计学家达成了一个普遍的共识，即出生时的性别比在各个群体中基本保持在每100名女性出生105名男性，只有种族或族裔的微小差异。然而，最近一项新的生物学文献表明，母体状况可能会导致男性受孕率更高。这两个文献是相互矛盾的，因为生物学文献表明，母亲压力的慢性指标应该与异质性SRB相关，而这通常不会在大型人群数据集中发现。具体而言，PI记录了所有先前的分析未能适当控制母体状况中的时不变异质性，并开发了一种新的方法来实现这一点。一旦实施，PI表明，这一新的方法证实，母亲的条件变化的SRB，挑战科学共识的SRB的恒定性和调和这些文献的矛盾结果。在项目1中，主要研究者力求在不同国家和背景下调查这些初步结果，从而就社会经济地位对工代机构的影响建立新的科学共识。项目2利用新方法，通过提供新的国家一级估计数，完善全球失踪妇女人数估计数。在项目3中，我们试图调和关于SRB，社会经济因素和孕产妇压力的文献中各种长期存在的困惑，包括战争期间和战争后，经济衰退和种族群体之间的性别比例变化。