Indians’ Irresistible Urge For Male Child Has Created 21 Million 'Unwanted' Girls, Says Economic Survey

The government’s Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao and Sukanya Samridhi Yojana schemes, and mandatory maternity leave rules are all steps in the right direction, says the report

Outlook Web Bureau

Updated on: 29 January 2018 4:42 pm

The irresistible Indian urge to have male child has created an estimated 21 million unwanted girls, said the Economic Survey 2018 tabled in the Parliament on Monday.

Many Indian parents continue to have children until they have a son, creating unwanted girl children. This “meta”-preference leads naturally to the notional category of "unwanted" girls with reduced access to resources.

"But there is another phenomenon of son meta preference, which involves parents adopting fertility "stopping rules"-- having children until the desired number of sons are born. This meta-preference leads naturally to the notional category of "unwanted" girls which is estimated at over 21 million."

In some sense, once born, the lives of women are improving but society still appears to want fewer of them to be born. “India has some distance to traverse because development has not proved to be an antidote,” said the survey led by chief economic adviser Arvind Subramanian.

Son preference is giving rise to skewed sex ratios at birth and beyond, leading to an estimate of 63 million "missing" women, the ministry said in its report.

The Economic Survey this year was remarkably presented with pink highlights. The colour of this year's survey cover was chosen, reported PTI, as a symbol of support for the growing movement to end violence against women, which spans continents. The chapter dedicated to Gender Issues " Gender and Son Meta-Preference: Is Development Itself an Antidote?" also began with #MeToo inscribed on top of the page.

The report cited the administrations willingness but lack of control over working in this direction."Perhaps the area where Indian society-- and this goes beyond governments to civil society, communities and households--needs to reflect on the most is what might be called "son preference" where development is not proving to be an antidote."

The survey report lauded the efforts of North-Eastern states for working towards women security.

“While there is considerable variation within the Indian states and across dimensions, the broad pattern is one of the North-Eastern states doing substantially better than the hinterland states even in development time; hinterland states are lagging, some associated with their level of development and some even beyond that; surprisingly, some southern states such as Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu fare worse than expected given their level of development.”