WATERING THE NEIGHBOUR'S GARDEN: THE GROWING - CICRED

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C.Z. GUILMOTO – I. ATTANÉ
Figure 3 Child sex ratio (0-6 years), India, computed from district data, 2001
census.
This geographic pattern obtained in China may appear surprising
in view of the seemingly stronger political and cultural homogeneity of
this country. Demographic behaviour and gender bias would be expected
to follow heterogeneous ethnic or social lines, but it appears
that variations in sex ratio are most prominent within the Handominated
areas that constitute most of eastern and central China. On
the contrary, one would presume that India’s sex ratio would be extremely
segmented in view of the internal cultural diversity of the
country. But high sex ratio areas in India illustrated by the maps cut
across several states from Punjab to Maharashtra with different linguistic,
religious and cultural characteristics. The spatial patchwork observed
on the Chinese map would actually be less surprising in India, a
cultural area characterized by its heterogeneous social composition,
than in China where the homogenizing impact of state policies on the
social fabric should be more pronounced.