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2.DemographyandMissingWomen.pdf
ECON 2213 2. Demography and Missing
Women
Demographic transition
• The term “demographic transition” refers to the change from high to low fertility rates (birth rates) and from high to low mortality rates (death rates).
• In a pre-industrial society, fertility rates are high since many children are needed to work in agriculture and there is no family planning; death rates are high because of disease, famine, and poor knowledge of medicine.
Demographic transition
• As medical knowledge and sanitation improve, the death rate falls, both for older people and for children.
• Over time, the birth rate also falls; since child mortality is lower, fewer children are needed in order to ensure a proper number of farm workers.
• In a modern industrial society, the birth rate and death rate are both low. The birth rate is low because of family planning, later marriage, and the improved status of women; the death rate is low because of improved health, improved medical care, and a reliable food supply.
Demographic transition
• The rate of population growth increases in the middle of the demographic transition, and then falls at the end of the transition.
• The number of workers in the labour force also grows, with a lag.
• During the demographic transition, there is a change in the age structure of the population: the ratio of the economically-active (i.e., working-age) population to the total population will first fall (as more children and elderly survive), then rise (as the birth rate falls), then fall.
• There may therefore be a transitional effect on GDP growth.
Demographic transition
• The transition in Europe and other now-industrial countries occurred during the 19th century. By now, in some countries, the birth rate has fallen below the death rate.
• The transition in Asia did not start until the mid- 20th century but it has been a faster transition process than in Europe, as Asia has been able to import health practices (e.g., sanitation) and health technologies (e.g., penicillin).
0
5
10
15
20
25
30 1
9 6
0
1 9
6 4
1 9
6 8
1 9
7 2
1 9
7 6
1 9
8 0
1 9
8 4
1 9
8 8
1 9
9 2
1 9
9 6
2 0
0 0
2 0
0 4
2 0
0 8
2 0
1 2
2 0
1 6
Canada
Birth rate
Death rate
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20 1
9 6
0 1
9 6
3 1
9 6
6 1
9 6
9 1
9 7
2 1
9 7
5 1
9 7
8 1
9 8
1 1
9 8
4 1
9 8
7 1
9 9
0 1
9 9
3 1
9 9
6 1
9 9
9 2
0 0
2 2
0 0
5 2
0 0
8 2
0 1
1 2
0 1
4
Germany
Birth rate
Death rate
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50 1
9 6
0
1 9
6 4
1 9
6 8
1 9
7 2
1 9
7 6
1 9
8 0
1 9
8 4
1 9
8 8
1 9
9 2
1 9
9 6
2 0
0 0
2 0
0 4
2 0
0 8
2 0
1 2
2 0
1 6
China
Birth rate
Death rate
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45 1
9 6
0 1
9 6
3 1
9 6
6 1
9 6
9 1
9 7
2 1
9 7
5 1
9 7
8 1
9 8
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4 1
9 8
7 1
9 9
0 1
9 9
3 1
9 9
6 1
9 9
9 2
0 0
2 2
0 0
5 2
0 0
8 2
0 1
1 2
0 1
4
India
Birth rate
Death rate
Demographic transition
• Government intervention also plays a role, as with enforced sterilization in India in the 1970s, and the one-child policy in China.
• The one-child policy, in effect from 1978 to 2015, restricted couples to having only one child.
• Exceptions: rural residents, if the first child is a girl; ethnic minorities; parents who are only children.
• The rationale for the policy was to reduce the birth rate. It was controversial due to reportedly draconian enforcement measures, such as infanticide and forced abortion.
"It is forbidden to discriminate against, mistreat or abandon baby girls."
Demographic transition
• Even after being allowed two children (starting in 2015), the birth rate has not risen much.
• When incomes rise, people tend to want smaller families.
Bloom, David E. and Jeffrey G. Williamson, “Demographic Transitions and Economic Miracles in Emerging Asia,” World Bank Economic Review 12:3 (1998), 419-455.
Bloom and Williamson (1998)
What is the most interesting or surprising result from the Bloom
and Williamson paper?
Economist Aug 15, 2015
“That India will overtake China as the world’s most populous country is not in question. But the date has just moved closer. The UN now reckons India will surpass China in 2022 rather than in 2028, as it thought two years ago. The new estimates put China’s fertility rate a bit lower, at 1.6 children per woman. India’s higher fertility rate (2.5 children per woman) and younger population mean it will swell faster, reaching 1.4 billion in 2022, when China’s population will peak. China’s working-age population is already shrinking as the country greys. India will eventually follow. By 2050 about 500m Chinese will be over 60, and 330m Indians.”
Missing Women
• The fall in the birth rate in China and India has not been experienced equally between boys and girls; rather, the birth rate has fallen more for girls.
• If parents want to have fewer children (either due to economic reasons or to government pressure), they often would prefer to have a boy rather than a girl.
• The availability of ultrasound technology has made sex- selective abortion more common (even though it is illegal in both China and India).
• The result is a higher ratio at birth of boys to girls than would be found in nature.
• Sen (1990) was the first to call this the “missing women” problem.
Missing Women
• Worldwide, the ratio of boys to girls at birth is 1.06, that is, around 106 boys for every 100 girls.
• According to the World Bank, in 2017 the ratio was:
– 1.150 in China
– 1.106 in India
1.04
1.06
1.08
1.1
1.12
1.14
1.16
Sex Ratio at Birth, 2017
Missing Women
• How can we estimate the number of missing women?
• Differences in the ratio of men to women are the result of differences in the ratio at birth and differences in mortality rates. With unbiased health conditions and equal nutrition, male mortality rates are higher at every age.
• In a stationary population, the ratio should be close to 1, although it will be different for countries with different age structures.
Missing Women
• Even if the sex ratio at birth is unbiased, there could be higher female than male child mortality if girls are not given the same nutrition or health care as boys.
• Sen (1990) estimates that 100 million women are missing; these estimates are based on ratios of men to women that exist in Europe and North America (1.05 women per man).
• Coale (1991) uses a ratio based on past fertility and mortality, and comes up with a lower number of 60 million.
Missing Women
• Das Gupta et al. (2003) argue that the similar kinship systems (systems of social relationships) of China and India (as well as South Korea) lead to their high male-to-female ratios.
• These kinship systems imply that daughters do not benefit their parents in economic terms, whether or not dowry must be paid. – Dowry is money or property paid by the bride or her
family to the groom or his family; bride price is money or property paid by the groom or his family to the bride or her family.
Missing Women
• Das Gupta et al. (2003) describe four types of discrimination against girls: – Before conception, with son-preferring fertility
stopping rules; Rosenblum (2010) finds that this explains as much as 25% of excess female child mortality in India.
– During pregnancy, through sex-selective abortion; this becomes easier with the availability of ultrasound technology.
– At birth, through sex-selective infanticide. – During early childhood, through poor nutrition and
healthcare, shown in higher mortality of girls than boys.
Missing Women
• Northern India and China have kinship systems that are both patrilineal (the productive assets are passed on through the male line) and patrilocal (the couple resides at the man’s house). – Raising a daughter is like “watering your neighbours’
garden” (India) or “plowing someone else’s field” (China).
• In addition, there is little flexibility in these countries’ systems. – In the middle ages in Europe, according to Das Gupta et al.
(2003), “women could inherit land if their parents had no sons, and the daughter and her husband would take over the property.” But this would not be possible in China or northern India.
Missing Women
• Historically, clans had their own territories, and due to strict exogamy, wives were brought in from elsewhere; men would never move to their wife’s village.
• Das Gupta et al. (2003) point out that “it is that only men constitute the social order, and women are the means whereby men reproduce themselves. Women are the biological reproducers, but it is through the father that a child acquires a social identity and is incorporated into the social order.”
• When a woman marries and leaves her village, the land that had been allocated to her is now re-allocated to the rest of the village households.
Missing Women
• There is regional variation in the rigidity of kinship systems.
• As a result, in southern India, the ratio of boys to girls is not so extreme.
• Tibetans and the ethnic minorities of China’s Yunnan province also show less son preference, but other minorities are similar to the Han majority. – (China officially recognizes 55 ethnic minorities,
making up 8.5% of the population. )
Missing Women
• Women are expected to marry; it is almost unheard of for a women to remain single and part of her parents’ household. (But this was possible in rural Europe.)
• Because women join their husband’s family, any income earned by women does not benefit her parents.
• As more women take part in the labour force, will this change?
Missing Women
• In China, only men can perform the rituals of ancestor worship; “without sons, grandsons and great-grandsons, one’s afterlife is insecure.”
• In India, male descendants must perform funeral rituals, and male descendants increase one’s prestige.
Missing Women
• There are also economic reasons for preferring sons: – Sons provide old-age support. – Dowry is a drain on resources; Vijayendra Rao of the World
Bank writes, “For most Indian parents the cost of a daughter’s marriage is the single largest expense of their lives. In one rural sample the average cost of a daughter’s marriage was six times the parents’ annual income.” (But in China, parents spend more on sons’ marriages than daughters’.)
– Labour-force participation: women’s paid work is rising, but they must contribute to their parents for this to affect son preference.
– Poverty: parents discriminate more against girls during periods of impoverishment.
Missing Women
• Will urbanization allow the value of girls to rise? • Changes with increased urbanization:
– Rules about passing on assets can become more flexible when the assets are not immovable (like land).
– Rules about a woman moving to her husband’s village have no meaning in city life.
– Daughters can choose to stay closer to their parents and provide them more support, financial or otherwise.
– Sons can choose to move away for employment. – Urban workers are more likely to have pensions and
health insurance, leading parents not to rely on their sons for old-age support.
Missing Women • Market reforms have allowed a labour market to
develop, so girls can earn wages and contribute to the family’s expenses before they marry. – On the other hand, business networks may become more
important in a market economy, and women may be disadvantaged as a result.
• Social and legal reform: Both the Indian independence movement and the rise of the Communists in China brought about an ideological commitment to gender equality, but the rules of kinship were not changed. – India has reserved 33% of seats for women in each village
assembly and municipal election, and is considering the same for Parliament; is this the right approach?
• Das Gupta et al. suggest using TV shows to push social change. Would this work?
Missing Women
• The fact that there was no female shortage in India has perhaps led to dowry inflation.
• Dowry-related violence, including abuse in order to extract more dowry from a wife’s family, appears to have grown more common during the 20th century.
• In China, there are reports of kidnapping as a way to obtain wives (Economist 4 Nov 2017).
• Das Gupta and Li (1999) write, “Being in short supply does not seem to alter women’s status and autonomy. These…can only be altered by efforts to alter the position of women in the family and society…A scarcity of women will raise their value but not their status.”
Missing Women
• The Economist reports that, in India, the female employment rate has fallen from 35% in 2005 to 26% in 2017 (the worldwide average is 50%). – A rise in female employment rates to
the same level as men would make India 27% richer.
• Why is this happening? – As households get richer, they are more
likely to want women to stay home. – Social mores are still very conservative. – There is a lack of employment
opportunities for women.
Edlund, Lena, Hongbin Li, Junjian Yi and Junsen Zhang, “Sex Ratios and Crime: Evidence from
China,” Review of Economics and Statistics 95:5 (2013), 1520-1534.
What is the most interesting or surprising result from the Edlund et
al. paper?
Jensen, Robert and Emily Oster, “The Power of TV: Cable Television and Women’s Status in
India,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 124:3 (2009), 1057-1094.
What is the most interesting or surprising result from the Jensen
and Oster paper?
Caste
• Caste refers to a system of social stratification (ordering) based on heredity.
• In India, caste has historically determined an individual’s occupation, but since Independence, the Indian government has attempted to lessen the effects of the caste system. – The Indian constitution forbids discrimination based
on caste. – A certain percentage of political offices is reserved for
the lowest castes (“Scheduled” castes or tribes).
• Since 1993, India has also had gender quotas for positions on village councils.
Beaman, Lori, Esther Duflo, Rohini Pande, and Petia Topalova, “Female Leadership Raises Aspirations and Educational Attainment for Girls: A Policy Experiment in India,” Science
335:6068 (2012), 582-586.
What is the most interesting or surprising result from the Beaman
et al. paper?
