Abstract
The sex ratio at birth (SRB) in India has been reported to be imbalanced since the 1970s. Previous studies have shown there is a great variation in the SRB between geographic locations across India till 2016. Considering the enormous population and regional heterogeneity of India, producing probabilistic SRB projections at the state level is crucial for policy planning and population projection. In this paper, we implement a Bayesian hierarchical time series model to project the SRB across India by state. We generate SRB probabilistic projections from 2017 to 2030 for 29 States and Union Territories (UTs) in India, and present results for 21 States/UTs with data available from the Sample Registration System. Our analysis takes into account two state-specific factors that contribute to sex-selective abortion in India, resulting in sex imbalances at birth: the intensity of son preference and fertility squeeze. We project that the highest deficits in female births will occur in Uttar Pradesh, with a cumulative number of missing female births of 2.0 (95% credible interval [1.9; 2.2]) million from 2017 to 2030. The total female birth deficits during 2017–2030 for the whole of India is projected to be 6.8 [6.6; 7.0] million.
Highlights
There has been a reported imbalance in India in the sex ratio at birth (SRB; defined as the ratio of male to female births) since the 1970s [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]
Among the 21 Indian States/Union Territories (UTs) with Sample Registration System (SRS) data, 17 of them record a positive effect of son preference on the SRB, i.e., the exponential of the desired sex ratio at birth (DSRB) coefficient median estimates is bigger than 1 for 17 States/UTs
The model results show that the effects of total fertility rate (TFR) on SRB differ in levels and trends across the different Indian States and UTs
Summary
There has been a reported imbalance in India in the sex ratio at birth (SRB; defined as the ratio of male to female births) since the 1970s [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]. The masculinized SRB for India is a direct result of the practice of sex-selective abortions at the national level. Unlike other countries affected by sex imbalances at birth, India is unique in its regional diversity of SRB trajectories. Some states, such as Punjab, have experienced an early and rapid rise in birth masculinity since the 1980s, whereas in North Indian states, the masculinized SRB started to increase later.
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