A kind of ‘blowback’ on a new generation of young men in China from that culture’s “customary preference for boys.”
According to the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, sex-selection is becoming a problem in the US too.
As many as 200 million girls may have been killed worldwide in this way, mostly in Muslim and Asian countries. The rate is increasing because of ultrasound technology that permits sex identification around 18 weeks.
Using data from the U.S. 2000 census, researchers have noticed a male sex bias in U.S.-born children of Chinese, Korean, and Asian Indian parents. The effect of birth order is striking. There is a normal sex ratio, 106 girls to 100 boys, for first births. If the first birth is a son, the sex ratio of second children is also normal. But if the first child is a girl, the second child tends to be a boy. And if the first two are girls, the third is 50% more likely to be a boy
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null 11:14 pm on June 4, 2009 Permalink |
In Muslim countries, really? When these issues come up, the examples used almost invariably tend to be India and China.
Call me naive, but I really wasn’t aware this was a widespread problem in Muslim communities. My uncle and his wife ‘tried’ for a girl until they succeeded. 6th time lucky.
willow 11:29 pm on June 4, 2009 Permalink |
That surprises me also. In Arab countries girls bring in huge amounts of money in dowries and real estate. Boys, on the other hand, cost money and real estate.
razib 12:03 am on June 5, 2009 Permalink |
yeah, i think there needs to be some data on that.
thabet 1:45 am on June 5, 2009 Permalink |
So, basically, there is no data on that assertion?
null 2:01 am on June 5, 2009 Permalink |
I think the data is that this kind of sex selection is something bad, backwards foreign people do and who’s more bad and backward than mozlemz?
Conrad Barwa 7:24 am on June 5, 2009 Permalink |
Most Asian countries that have adverse sex selection are not Muslim; I don’t know of any Muslim country that has this problem to a significant degree. The only exception where there is clear demographic evidence of sex selection is in Aceh province in Indonesia – Monica Das Gupta has an excellent article on Son-preference in the Journal of Development Studies that came out a while back – that looks at sex ratios in India, South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia and Indonesia. I can provide the ref if people are interested.
From the Indian case which I am very familiar with, it is notable that the Muslim community has far more favourable sex ratios than the Hindu community. Similar comparisons can be made for Bangladesh and PAkistan – India has the worst and most rapidly declining sex ratios in the region. I think only South Korea’s are worse from what I remember.
razib 7:51 pm on June 5, 2009 Permalink |
btw, the preferences are changing in korea. now daughter preference is the norm. in japan this change happened around 1990.
Conrad Barwa 9:00 am on June 6, 2009 Permalink |
Data that I saw went up to the mid to late 90s in South Korea. The sex ratio has become so imbalanced I don’t think you can even talk about a ‘daughter-preference’ all you can say at an aggregate level is that it is becoming less imbalanced. Unless you have data to show for generations born in any period have age cohorts that are heavily skewed in favour of females, I don’t think you can make a claim for daughter preference as such.
pi.info 5:33 am on June 5, 2009 Permalink |
That’s why this jumped out at me. Wikipedia has some stats on this. Sepia Mutiny had a post back in January on the topic (I can only access the cache and not the actual page for some reason). More of a desi issue than a Muslim issue.
Now when you google “sex selection” and “Muslim” this TI post is the first thing that shows up, so this challenge/correction is out there for anybody who cares to research the assertion before making it.
Willow 8:43 am on June 5, 2009 Permalink |
Should somebody call them out?
johnpi 9:05 am on June 5, 2009 Permalink |
You mean the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons? Yes. In the meantime I’ll add their name and acronym to the tags on this so it shows up in google searches on them.