In India, the declining number of girls born each year points to a deeply troubling reality. Between 1987 and 2016, approximately 13.5 million girls went missing at birth, a phenomenon largely driven by sex-selective abortions. This practice reflects a cultural preference for sons that has shaped Indian society for generations, creating a severe gender imbalance that affects millions of families and communities across the country.
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Why families prefer sons over daughters
The roots of sex-selective abortion in India lie in deeply embedded cultural and economic factors. Sons are traditionally seen as assets who carry forward the family name and perform crucial religious rituals. According to Hindu customs, sons must light the funeral pyre to ensure parents have a good afterlife, making male children essential for spiritual reasons. Sons also provide economic security and care for aging parents, while daughters are viewed as temporary members of their birth families.
Financial considerations further strengthen son preference. Although illegal, the dowry system remains widespread, requiring families to spend substantial savings when daughters marry. After marriage, women typically join their husband’s family and care for his parents, leaving couples without daughters with limited support in old age. These combined pressures create a powerful incentive for families to ensure they have at least one son.
Declining fertility rates have intensified this preference. As Indian families shifted from having an average of 5.6 children in 1970 to just 2.3 children by 2018, couples have fewer opportunities to have sons naturally. This creates pressure to use technology to determine fetal sex and abort female fetuses to achieve their desired family composition.
How medical technology enables discrimination
The widespread availability of ultrasound technology transformed how families act on son preference. Before the 1980s, sex selection primarily involved female infanticide or neglect of daughters after birth. Since ultrasound became widely accessible around 1985, prenatal sex determination followed by selective abortion of female fetuses became the primary method for achieving desired family composition.
Ultrasound machines are now affordable and accessible across India, making prenatal sex determination easy despite legal prohibitions. Medical practitioners who reveal fetal sex operate a lucrative business, as families are willing to pay for this information. The combination of accessible technology, willing providers, and strong cultural motivation has created conditions where sex-selective abortion flourishes.
The practice is particularly common among educated and affluent families. Contrary to expectations, women with ten or more years of education show greater declines in daughter births than illiterate mothers, and wealthier households are more likely to practice sex selection than poorer ones. This suggests that access to technology and resources, rather than lack of education, enables the practice.
Regional variations and birth order patterns
Sex-selective abortion shows distinct patterns across India. States in the Hindi Belt, including Haryana and Punjab, have historically shown the most skewed sex ratios. The 2011 census recorded 121 boys born for every 100 girls in Haryana, far exceeding the natural ratio of approximately 105 boys per 100 girls.
Birth order significantly affects the likelihood of sex selection. When the firstborn is a girl, families often resort to sex-selective abortion for subsequent pregnancies. The ratio of girls to boys for second births when the firstborn was a girl fell from 906 per 1,000 boys in 1990 to 836 in 2005. In contrast, sex ratios remain relatively normal for firstborns and for second births when the firstborn is a boy.
Legal efforts to combat sex selection
Recognizing the severity of the problem, the Indian government enacted the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act in 1994, which prohibited prenatal sex determination. This legislation required genetic clinics and ultrasound centers to register with the government and banned medical providers from revealing fetal sex to prospective parents.
Poor enforcement led to amendments in 2003, transforming the law into the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act. These amendments expanded the prohibition to include pre-conception sex selection methods, brought ultrasound explicitly within the law’s scope, and created state-level supervisory boards. Penalties were increased to up to three years imprisonment and fines of 10,000 rupees for first offenses, with harsher punishment for repeat violations.
Implementation challenges
Despite legal prohibitions, enforcement remains inconsistent. Many ultrasound clinics continue to provide prenatal sex determination services through coded messages or informal communication. Medical practitioners face minimal consequences, and regulatory authorities often lack resources for effective monitoring. The law also creates complications for legitimate medical uses of ultrasound technology in other specialties.
Public attitudes reveal the difficulty of legal solutions. A 2022 survey found that 40% of Indians consider it acceptable to use modern methods to balance the number of girls and boys in a family, suggesting significant portions of society do not view sex-selective abortion as fundamentally wrong. This cultural acceptance undermines enforcement efforts and allows the practice to continue.
Some districts that rigorously implement the law have seen declines in sex-selective abortion, demonstrating that enforcement can be effective when prioritized. However, such success stories remain limited, and most of India continues to experience abnormal sex ratios at birth.
The demographic impact on India’s future
The cumulative effect of decades of sex-selective abortion has created severe demographic consequences. The 2011 census revealed 7.1 million fewer girls than boys aged 0-6 years, compared to 6 million in 2001 and 4.2 million in 1991. This growing gap represents not just missing births, but also missing women, wives, and mothers in future generations.
Regions with severely skewed sex ratios face a surplus of men who cannot find marriage partners. This marriage squeeze can lead to increased trafficking of women, higher bride prices, and social instability. Families that once rejected daughters now find themselves desperate to find wives for their sons in communities where women are scarce.
Recent data suggests some improvement may be occurring. States like Haryana and Punjab have shown modest increases in the proportion of girls born in recent years, potentially reflecting greater awareness from public education campaigns and stricter law enforcement. However, India’s sex ratio at birth remains significantly skewed, indicating that sex-selective abortion continues on a large scale.
Beyond legal solutions
Experts recognize that ending sex-selective abortion requires addressing root causes beyond legal prohibition. Promoting women’s equal status in society, eliminating dowry practices, and providing economic incentives for raising daughters represent long-term solutions. Government programs like Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao encourage families to value daughters through public awareness campaigns and educational support.
Changing deeply rooted cultural attitudes takes time. Studies show that gender-equitable attitudes significantly reduce son preference, suggesting that advancing women’s rights and opportunities can eventually reduce motivation for sex selection. Until fundamental shifts occur in how society values women, legal measures alone cannot fully eliminate this practice.
What do you think? How can societies balance cultural traditions with equal rights for all children? What role should technology companies and medical professionals play in preventing sex-selective practices?
References
- https://elifesciences.org/articles/79853
- https://www.pop.org/sex-selective-abortion-in-india/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex-selective_abortion
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9514843/
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21612820/
- https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/03/02/son-preference-and-abortion/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Conception_and_Pre-Natal_Diagnostic_Techniques_Act,_1994
- https://byjus.com/free-ias-prep/pre-conception-and-pre-natal-diagnostic-techniques-prohibition-of-sex-selection-act-1994/
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3166246/
- https://www.mcgill.ca/msr/volume3/article2
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