Girls Decide Initiative

India – Girls Can’t Seem to Win

As the nation of India advances economically, its girls are suffering more. Its recently released Census 2011 revealed, despite government efforts to the contrary, a continuing deterioration of the nation’s child sex ratio. In the 0 to 6 age group, the number of females per 1000 males declined to 914 from 927 in 2001, 945 in 1991, 962 in 1981 and 976 in 1961 (the norm, sans female discrimination, is 950). India's increasingly skewed sex ratio is due to increased female foeticide, neglect of the girl child and sex-selection abortion. India’s laws banning the use of embryo screening, sperm sorting, and other methods for sex selection, as well as campaigns on TV and radio promoting the value of girls, and cash payments by states upon the birth of a girl child have been largely ineffective to stem the tide. Researchers estimate that up to 12 million girls have been aborted in the past three decades, usually by wealthier families when the first born is a girl.

Given the shortage of girls compared to boys, classical economic theory and the laws of supply and demand should lead parents to value girls more, to have more of them and not to make dowry payments to marry them off, and instead, if there is to be a monetary exchange, parents of girls should receive a bride price. This is not happening. The number of girls continues to decline, and dowry payments are rising, not falling. Why is the law of supply and demand not working in India’s market for marital “transactions?”

Culture, economics, demographics, mating and reproductive systems all play a role on how girls are valued, or not, in India. India’s demographic transition to smaller families is leading increasingly prosperous parents to take extra steps to insure the birth of a son. In Indian culture, sons, but not daughters, are central in certain religious rites, are permitted to contribute economically to the family and to take care of parents in old age (there is no national pension system). A daughter becomes the property of her husband’s family. Having a girl is like “watering your neighbor’s garden,” is an old Indian saying. Times have not changed, even as India becomes more prosperous. Census 2011 found that the child sex ratio was deteriorating further in the wealthiest states and also in Muslim-majority states like Jammu and Kashmir (this is not just a Hindu problem).

A girl’s family benefits by paying a dowry, since it no longer has to support what is viewed as a drain on family resources. A boy’s family benefits by receiving assets in exchange for supporting this “unproductive” girl. But the girl is productive or rather, “reproductive” for the groom’s family, since she will be providing heirs for the groom and his ancestors. This is the reproductive payoff to the dowry system. The bride’s and groom’s families may both see themselves as benefitting from the dowry transaction, because they have different standards and values by which they judge costs and benefits.

The Indian marital system has been described as characterized by hypergamy, i.e., parents wanting their daughters to “marry up,” (virtually all marriages in India are arranged), in order to elevate their daughters and her descendants, into higher social levels, thereby improving the parents’ kinship network. Higher status men, in turn, theoretically, may prefer a lower status wife in order to insure fidelity (the theory being that she will not risk her newly-elevated status) and to be able to extract a higher dowry, since the lower class bride’s family has more to gain from the marriage than a family from an equal social level. Dowries enable parents of brides to compete for status- the more they can pay, the higher status husband they will get for their daughter, the better the kinship network they will acquire and the better chances for reproductive success, i.e. surviving grandchildren.

Since there are fewer males as one ascends the economic hierarchy, a girl’s parents face increased competition for suitable mates. Hence, with Indian hypergamy and declining family size, it is the eligible male that is rare. The currency in this competition is the dowry, and here classical economics does prevail in India, since dowries are rising. Young couples favor a generous dowry as a means of enjoying materialistic affluence in an increasingly affluent society. Wealthy families desirous of one or two children use sex-selection abortion to insure the birth of a son, as do poorer families who cannot afford multiple dowries. Economics, Demography, Culture, Status, Kinship and Reproductive Strategies all unite in India to perpetuate the system.

While the provision of a pension system and educational and livelihood opportunities for girls is a start, more fundamental cultural will come only when policy makers understand how deeply parents are invested in how well the current system provides them with both status with a kinship network and reproductive success with viable heirs. Meanwhile, parents will make do by marrying their sons to younger and younger cohorts of brides, and the laws of supply and demand will not be able to right the situation by valuing girls more and bringing an end to sex-selection abortion.

By Alexander Sanger
25 May 2011

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