Family and Health Consequences of Imbalanced Sex Ratios in India

描述（由申请人提供）：印度长期以来一直存在女性数量不足的问题，随着性别选择性堕胎技术的广泛采用，这种性别比例失衡可能会加剧。尽管大量的研究已经记录了印度人口性别比例的水平、趋势和差异，但我们对印度男女数量不平衡对关键的家庭、人口和健康相关行为的影响知之甚少。本项目使用来自三个不同来源的数据——2005- 2006年全国家庭健康调查（NFHS-3）、2004- 2005年印度人类发展调查（IHDS）和1981年、1991年和2001年印度人口普查——来检验印度人口性别比例失衡对关键家庭形成行为（如结婚年龄、生育率、离婚可能性、社会和地理异族通婚、嫁妆价值）的影响；关于性行为和健康结果（例如，第一次性行为的年龄、婚前和婚外性行为、性伴侣的数量、商业性行为、强迫性行为和性传播疾病（包括艾滋病毒/艾滋病）的感染情况）；关于性别家庭动态（例如，妇女在家庭决策中的作用、赋予妇女权力和自主的其他方面、家庭暴力）；以及妇女的社会经济成就（例如，妇女的识字率、受教育程度、劳动力参与率、职业成就）。多层固定效应和随机效应回归模型将估计当地婚姻市场性别比率（用人口普查数据衡量）对NFHS-3和IHDS测量的这些结果的影响。通过利用印度各地成人性别比例的巨大年龄分级和地理差异，并通过应用适用于多层次数据结构分析的统计技术，拟议的分析有望大大增强我们对印度日益增加的男性相对于女性的过剩将如何影响家庭生活和人口健康的多个方面的理解。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): India has long experienced a numerical shortage of females, and this sex ratio imbalance is likely to grow with the widespread adoption of sex-selective abortion technologies. Although considerable research has documented levels, trends, and differentials in India's population sex ratio, we know little about the consequences of India's imbalance in the numbers of women and men for critical family, demographic, and health-related behaviors. This project uses data from three different sources-the 2005-06 National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3), the 2004-05 India Human Development Survey (IHDS), and the 1981, 1991, and 2001 Censuses of India-to examine the impact of India's imbalanced population sex ratio on key family formation behaviors (e.g., age at marriage, fertility, likelihood of divorce, social and geographic exogamy, the values of dowries); on sexual behaviors and health outcomes (e.g., age at first sex, engagement in premarital and extramarital sex, number of sexual partners, commercial sex, forced sex, and contraction of sexually-transmitted disease, including HIV/AIDS); on gendered family dynamics (e.g., women's roles in household decision-making, other dimensions of women's empowerment and autonomy, domestic violence); and on women's socioeconomic attainment (e.g., women's literacy, educational attainment, labor force participation, occupational attainment). Multilevel fixed-effect and random-effect regression models will estimate the impact of the local marriage market sex ratio, measured with census data, on these outcomes measured in the NFHS-3 and the IHDS. By capitalizing on the substantial age-graded and geographic variation in adult sex ratios across India, and by applying statistical techniques appropriate for the analysis of multilevel data structures, the proposed analysis holds promise for substantially enhancing our understanding of how India's increasing overabundance of males relative to females will affect multiple dimensions of family life and population health.