Suchergebnisse

This research examines the elderly missing women phenomenon - masculinized sex ratios in the elderly population from a fourfold approach. First, it systematizes the causal factors responsible for missing women according to different stages of the female life course (before/at birth, childhood, young adulthood, adulthood and old age) to reveal an elderly missing women phenomenon. The categorization emphasizes that the majority of literature to date has focused on the first two stages while neglecting the cumulative impact of factors affecting missing women at later stages and especially old age. Second, it evaluates the elderly missing women phenomenon in all countries across Asia. It shows that while the missing women phenomenon is well researched in specific countries of East/Southeast Asia and South Asia, it is mostly ignored in the Middle Eastern region of Western Asia where the extent of the female deficit is worse. Further, even in the former regions the issue is mostly addressed at young ages. In light of the rapid ageing of Asia, this points to the necessity of changing the geographical focus of literature on missing women from younger to older age groups in East/Southeast and South Asia and place a greater emphasis on the Middle Eastern region as a whole. Third, using Pakistan as a case study, it considers whether the elderly missing women phenomenon observable in the elderly populations of some Asian countries may be the result of a second set of possible group effects, namely demographic shocks. An evaluation of conflicts and natural disasters throughout the history of Pakistan, however, reveals that the first set of group effects (i.e. factors across the life course) need to be given greater weightage in explaining the phenomenon. Finally, it examines the empirical strength of the factors, forces and exogenous shocks responsible for missing women by assigning variables to these causal machanisms and testing their strength at the cross national level. The results reveal that, when evaluated in an ordinary least squares framework, the number of variables that are significant increases when the elderly population versus the total population is used as the dependent variable. This shows that the true severity of the missing women phenomenon only becomes evident when evaluating the elderly missing women phenomenon because the latter considers the consequences of a female deficit from all life stages. By analyzing the elderly missing phenomenon in this manner, this research shows that the life course perspective is the ideal framework to analyze the missing women phenomenon in general and the elderly missing women phenomenon in particular.

Abstract

Abstract
This paper investigates the gender-selection decisions of immigrants in the United Kingdom, using data from the 1971–2006 General Household Survey. We examine sex-selection in the UK among immigrant families and the gender composition of previous births, conditional on socio-economic characteristics. Our key result is that better-educated immigrants balance their family after the birth of two sons, by having a daughter thereafter. Our study also is the first to estimate the number of missing women among Asian immigrants in a European country, contributing to research on the US and Canada that missing women are also a phenomenon of the developed world.


JEL codes
J13, J15, O52, Z13

Eraser killing : the history and psychology of a new criminal profile -- Out of the shadows -- The dark triad -- The real American tragedy -- Getting away with murder -- The lady-killer -- Disappearing acts -- Hiding in plain sight -- Pregnant and vulnerable : when a child is seen as a threat -- A psychological autopsy of a classic eraser killing -- A watery grave -- Keeping secrets -- Too good to be true -- Seeds of a plan -- A collision course -- Sex, lies, and audiotape -- Fixing a broken system

This article explores the relationship between religion, caste, infant mortality and fertility across Hindus and Muslims in India using recent data from the 2006 National Family Health Survey. The analysis shows that Muslims exhibit lower infant mortality rates relative to Hindus, and that this difference is not adequately explained by socio-economic status, location and policy variables. We argue that the combination of gender preference and heterogeneity in desired fertility across religious groups offers one potential explanation for the observed differences in mortality rates. Our data support this view; the difference in infant mortality between Muslims and Hindus is concentrated at higher birth order and among girls, irrespective of their birth order. We also show that there are differences in mortality between lower-caste Hindus and higher caste Hindus in our sample.