Self-Correction of Sex Ratios in India: Evidence from the 1981-2011 Census Data

David Bishai, Johns Hopkins University
Nadia Diamond-Smith, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Sex ratios in India have become increasingly skewed over the past decades. While non-human and human sex ratios have been shown to adapt to environmental stresses, there is little evidence that human sex ratios self-correct due to market forces. We hypothesize that when sex ratios become very uneven, the shortage of girls would increase girls' future value leading sex ratios to self-correct. Using data on children under five we examine the relationship between sex ratio change over time by state. Indian states with skewed sex ratios became even more skewed between 1991 and 2001. However, states with the most skewed sex ratios in 2001 became less skewed by 2011. Fixed effects models show that, accounting for unobserved state-level characteristics, sex ratios are now significantly negatively correlated with the change in sex ratio in the successive ten-year period. This suggests that self-corrective forces are at work on imbalanced Indian sex ratios.