WATERING THE NEIGHBOUR'S GARDEN: THE GROWING - CICRED

SEX RATIO AT BIRTH AND EXCESS FEMALE CHILD MORTALITY IN INDIA…
mended vaccinations are not complete until 12 months. The odds of
child immunization for girls (with boys as the reference category) are
estimated. Multivariate logistic regression models are also applied to
study the effect of development factors such as women’s education
and household economic condition on female discrimination in health
care and excess female child mortality.
Most parts of the results in this chapter are presented and discussed
for the major states of India, with region-wise regression model
estimates in the latter section. The five regions categorized are ‘North’
(Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu region of Jammu & Kashmir, and
Punjab), ‘North Central’ (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar
Pradesh) ‘East’ (Assam, north-eastern states, Orissa and West Bengal),
‘West’ (Goa, Gujarat and Maharashtra) and ‘South’ (Andhra Pradesh,
Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu). The socio-economically less
advanced states (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan,
Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Uttaranchal), which constitutes 45
percent of the country’s population, are designated by the Government
of India as Empowered Action Group (EAG) states to specially focus
interventions in order to improve health and socioeconomic conditions.
3. Factors influencing sex ratio trends in India
The demographic factors that directly determine the overall sex ratio
of the population are sex ratio at birth, sex differential in mortality,
sex-selective migration and sex differentials in under-enumeration. The
trends and changes in these factors shape the sex ratio trends and
patterns. So far, evidence in the Indian context does not point to a
significant contribution of sex differences in migration and underenumeration
to the increasing sex ratio. In adult ages, the marginal
surplus mortality for women over men, in the past decades, has now
turned into marginal excess mortality for men.
Higher sex ratio in India was mainly attributed to higher female
(child) mortality compared to that of the male, which is frequently
referred to in the literature as gender bias in child mortality. Male
children face hurdles of survival only during the neonatal, and possibly
during the post-neonatal period. In ages 1-5, sex differentials in child
mortality turn to female disadvantage. Sex differentials in child mortality
are the primary factors accounting for the historically high sex ratios
in the Indian population (Visaria, 1967; Bardhan, 1974). The trends in
excess female child mortality constructed from SRS data show that
discrimination of girls continues unabated in the northern states
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