WATERING THE NEIGHBOUR'S GARDEN: THE GROWING - CICRED

Vulnerable Daughters in a Modernizing Society:
From ‘Son Preference’ to ‘Daughter
Discrimination’ in Rural South India 1
T.V. SEKHER, Neelambar HATTI
“Having a daughter is like watering a flower in the neighbour’s garden”
(Tamil proverb)
1. Introduction and conceptual framework
The high masculine sex ratios of the Indian population have been
a matter of concern for some time. Considerable attention has been
paid to different dimensions of female deficit in India and persisting
regional variations (Sen, 1990; Agnihotri, 2000; Miller, 1981 and 1989;
Bhat, 2002; Croll, 2002), since the numerical imbalances between the
male and female sexes were pointed out in the 1970s (Visaria, 1971;
Natarajan, 1972). The results of 2001 Census have set off further
debate on the issue and have narrowed down the focus to the changes
in juvenile or child sex ratio. 2 Changes in the sex ratio of children, aged
0-6 years, are better indicators of the status of the girl child in India,
known to be more hostile to females in their early age. It also reflects
the intra-household gender relations. Why millions of girls do not
appear to be surviving in contemporary India, despite an overall
improvement in development and many governmental measures to
enhance the status of women? Why are female children still at risk and
why is daughter discrimination on the increase despite progress in
female literacy and participation of women in economic and political
activities? Is there any significant shift from ‘son preference’ to
‘daughter discrimination’ at the household level? There is an urgent
1 An earlier version of this paper was presented at the XXV International Population
Conference of IUSSP at Tours, France, July 2005.
2 Defining the sex ratio by covering children in age group 0-6 may seem arbitrary, but
we follow here the statistics provided by Census of India.