Shaming Numbers

Among the many forms of gender inequality, perhaps the most insidious is the one related to the sex ratio. India ranks high among countries having an adverse sex ratio, with fewer women than men. The 2011 Census revealed a small improvement in the overall sex ratio, from 932.91 females for every 1000 males (in 2001) to 940.27, but a steep fall in ratio for the 0-6 age group, from 927.31 to 914.23. Now the World Bank’s ‘World Development Report 2012’ has come up with more shaming numbers. After China, India has the highest number of “missing girls” at birth, that is, the numbers that should have been born in keeping with the average world sex ratio at birth. It is small consolation that in India, the number of girls missing at age zero has come down marginally since 1990. The report, titled ‘Gender Equality and Development,’ notes that were it not for these two countries, an additional 1.2 million girls would have been born in the world (1 million in China alone). In both countries, the son preference — a clear cultural preference for boys — combining with the easy availability of technology to discover the sex of the foetus has resulted in sex-selective abortions, a phenomenon Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen terms “natal inequality.” The high numbers in India show that attempts to tackle female foeticide through a ban on sex-determination tests, imposed under the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Act, have been largely ineffective.

China and India also account for the highest excess female mortality after birth, that is, the numbers of girls and women who die prematurely. The disproportionate mortality of girls during infancy and early childhood is the result of discrimination and a lack of access to water, sanitation, and health facilities. In India and some other countries, complications of pregnancy and childbirth are the cause of excess deaths of women in the reproductive age. The World Bank report makes the telling point that “despite stellar economic growth in recent years, maternal mortality [in India] is almost six times the rate in Sri Lanka.” On the other hand, in sub-Saharan Africa, which accounts for 1.1 million missing women — a majority of them in the reproductive age group — the report notes the “dramatic” impact of HIV/AIDS on the increase from about 639,000 in 1990. From these and other numbers presented by the report, it is clear that, while more women are getting educated and entering the labour force, the gender gap stubbornly persists in vital domains. These gaps cannot be addressed unless it is first realised that gender inequality is not a women’s issue — and that it affects the well being of both men and women.