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Is sex ratio at birth an appropriate measure of prenatal sex selection? Findings of a theoretical model and its application to India

Son preference and prenatal sex selection against females have resulted in significant sex ratio at birth (SRB) imbalances well documented in several Asian countries, including India and China. The SRB bias is generally used as indicator for the extent and trends of prenatal sex selection against fe...

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Autores principales: Dubuc, Sylvie, Sivia, Devinderjit Singh
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BMJ Publishing Group 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6058172/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30057794
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2017-000675
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author Dubuc, Sylvie
Sivia, Devinderjit Singh
author_facet Dubuc, Sylvie
Sivia, Devinderjit Singh
author_sort Dubuc, Sylvie
collection PubMed
description Son preference and prenatal sex selection against females have resulted in significant sex ratio at birth (SRB) imbalances well documented in several Asian countries, including India and China. The SRB bias is generally used as indicator for the extent and trends of prenatal sex selection against females. Decreasing fertility levels are expected to increase sex selection and thus SRB bias, since desiring fewer children increases the risk for families to remain sonless (fertility squeeze effect). We developed and employ mathematical models linking family size, birth order and childbearing strategies with population SRB bias. We show that SRB bias can increase despite fewer sex selection interventions occurring, inconsistent with the expectation of the fertility squeeze effect. We show that a disproportionality effect of fertility reduction amplifies SRB bias, in addition to the fertility squeeze effect, making SRB bias an inaccurate indicator for changes in sex selection practices within a population. We propose to use sex selection propensity (proportion of couples intervening) to measure behavioural change and evaluate policies targeting sex selection practices. We apply our findings to India, showing for instance that sex selection propensity in Punjab and Delhi was lower than in Rajasthan or Uttar Pradesh, despite significantly higher SRB bias in the former. While we observe a continuous overall increase in the SRB over the 2005–2010 period in India, our results indicate that prenatal sex selection propensity started declining during that period.
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spelling pubmed-60581722018-07-27 Is sex ratio at birth an appropriate measure of prenatal sex selection? Findings of a theoretical model and its application to India Dubuc, Sylvie Sivia, Devinderjit Singh BMJ Glob Health Research Son preference and prenatal sex selection against females have resulted in significant sex ratio at birth (SRB) imbalances well documented in several Asian countries, including India and China. The SRB bias is generally used as indicator for the extent and trends of prenatal sex selection against females. Decreasing fertility levels are expected to increase sex selection and thus SRB bias, since desiring fewer children increases the risk for families to remain sonless (fertility squeeze effect). We developed and employ mathematical models linking family size, birth order and childbearing strategies with population SRB bias. We show that SRB bias can increase despite fewer sex selection interventions occurring, inconsistent with the expectation of the fertility squeeze effect. We show that a disproportionality effect of fertility reduction amplifies SRB bias, in addition to the fertility squeeze effect, making SRB bias an inaccurate indicator for changes in sex selection practices within a population. We propose to use sex selection propensity (proportion of couples intervening) to measure behavioural change and evaluate policies targeting sex selection practices. We apply our findings to India, showing for instance that sex selection propensity in Punjab and Delhi was lower than in Rajasthan or Uttar Pradesh, despite significantly higher SRB bias in the former. While we observe a continuous overall increase in the SRB over the 2005–2010 period in India, our results indicate that prenatal sex selection propensity started declining during that period. BMJ Publishing Group 2018-07-19 /pmc/articles/PMC6058172/ /pubmed/30057794 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2017-000675 Text en © Article author(s) (or their employer(s) unless otherwise stated in the text of the article) 2018. All rights reserved. No commercial use is permitted unless otherwise expressly granted. This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt and build upon this work, for commercial use, provided the original work is properly cited. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
spellingShingle Research
Dubuc, Sylvie
Sivia, Devinderjit Singh
Is sex ratio at birth an appropriate measure of prenatal sex selection? Findings of a theoretical model and its application to India
title Is sex ratio at birth an appropriate measure of prenatal sex selection? Findings of a theoretical model and its application to India
title_full Is sex ratio at birth an appropriate measure of prenatal sex selection? Findings of a theoretical model and its application to India
title_fullStr Is sex ratio at birth an appropriate measure of prenatal sex selection? Findings of a theoretical model and its application to India
title_full_unstemmed Is sex ratio at birth an appropriate measure of prenatal sex selection? Findings of a theoretical model and its application to India
title_short Is sex ratio at birth an appropriate measure of prenatal sex selection? Findings of a theoretical model and its application to India
title_sort is sex ratio at birth an appropriate measure of prenatal sex selection? findings of a theoretical model and its application to india
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6058172/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30057794
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2017-000675
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