WATERING THE NEIGHBOUR'S GARDEN: THE GROWING - CICRED

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F. MESLÉ –J. VALLIN –I. BADURASHVILI
of China, which deprives couples of the freedom of having as many
children as they wish.
Figure 1 Trend in sex ratio at birth in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, 1980-
2001
Sex ratio
125
120
115
110
105
100
Armenia Azerbaijan Georgia
1980 1985 1990 1995 2000
Source: WHO mortality data base (http://www.who.int/healthinfo/morttables/en/index.
html).
In some Mediterranean and Muslim countries, significant son
preference has existed for a long time and sometimes still results in
differential behaviour towards a child depending on the sex, with
extreme consequences such as, for example, the excess mortality of
female children in Bangladesh (Chen et al., 1981), in Tunisia (Haffad,
1984; Chekir and Vallin, 2001), in Algeria (Vallin, 1978), and more
generally in the Muslim countries (Adlakha and Suchindran, 1985). Sex
ratio at birth could also be expected to increase in such countries when
methods of foetal sex-determination start to develop. It is however
surprising that the phenomenon appears abruptly in an area where it
was undoubtedly least expected: three countries of the Caucasus that
were for a long time subject to the Soviet system, a system that cannot
be said to have supported a preference for one sex over another. It is
even more surprising that of all the former USSR countries, only three
nations 1 –Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan–are concerned while none
1 The three South Caucasian countries greatly differ in terms of religion, language,
and many other cultural features. Basically, Azerbaijanis are mostly Muslim while
Armenian and Georgian are Christian, but belonging to two independent Orthodox
Churches. Azerbaijanis speak Azeri (a Turkic language) that used to be written in
Arabic before 1928, then Latin (1928-39) and Cyrillic (1939-1998) alphabet, and