Cultural Influences Behind Female Feticide and Infanticide: A Deep Dive

Every year, millions of pregnancies in India are terminated – not because of health complications, but because the fetus is female. And in the cases where girls are born despite these pressures, some are killed within hours of birth. These are not random acts of violence. They are the product of a deeply embedded socio-cultural system that assigns radically different values to male and female lives. Research published in BMJ Case Reports puts it plainly: whether in the Vedic era or modern times, negative attitudes toward female babies have remained remarkably consistent in large parts of India. Understanding why requires looking honestly at the cultural machinery that keeps these practices alive – and the cascading social damage they leave behind.

What we mean by female feticide and infanticide 🔗

These two terms are often used together but refer to distinct practices. Female feticide is the selective abortion of a female fetus after sex determination through ultrasound or amniocentesis. Female infanticide is the deliberate killing of a newborn girl after birth, through direct violence or deliberate neglect – withholding food, warmth, or medical care. According to research published in the IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science, both practices are driven by the same root cause: socio-cultural norms that systematically favor sons over daughters and treat daughters as a burden.

According to The Public Health Advocate at UC Berkeley, since sex determination technology became widely available in the 1970s, India is estimated to have around 63 million fewer women as a result. The Pew Research Center, drawing on Union government data, estimated that at least 9 million female feticides occurred in India between 2000 and 2019 alone. These are not marginal statistics – they represent a demographic catastrophe shaped by culture.

Patriarchal pressures and son preference 🔗

At the core of both practices is a concept that sociologists call son preference – the systematic valuation of male children over female ones. In India, this preference is not simply a personal bias. It is institutionalized through religious practice, economic structure, and social custom, making it feel less like prejudice and more like common sense to those living inside these systems.

Religious and ritual obligations tied to sons 🔗

In many Hindu traditions, sons hold an irreplaceable role in performing funeral rites (Antyesti) for deceased parents. This religious function alone makes sons feel essential to a family’s spiritual continuity. As documented in IOSR research on female feticide and infanticide, the belief that only a son can perform these last rites has been one of the oldest and most persistent cultural drivers of son preference across generations.

Economic logic of patrilineal inheritance 🔗

India’s dominant family structure is patrilineal – property, land, and family name pass through the male line. Sons stay within the family home after marriage; daughters leave. A detailed review published in Frontiers in Global Women’s Health explains that in this arrangement, daughters are seen as transitory family members whose economic contributions ultimately benefit another household. Sons, by contrast, are viewed as long-term assets – future breadwinners and old-age caregivers. This economic calculus makes having a daughter feel like an investment with no return.

The dowry burden 🔗

Compounding the perception of daughters as economically unviable is the dowry system. Although dowry is illegal under India’s Dowry Prohibition Act of 1961, the practice continues widely. Families with daughters must often assemble substantial payments of cash, jewelry, and goods at the time of marriage – a financial obligation that can take years to accumulate and sometimes pushes families into debt. Research published in the journal Nursing for Women’s Health notes that the dowry system has effectively cast daughters as a net economic loss, a mindset captured in sayings like “a son spells rewards, a daughter expense.”

Caste-specific dynamics 🔗

Son preference is not uniform across all communities. A field study published in Evolution and Human Behavior examined two caste groups in Tamil Nadu – the Thevars (a warrior caste) and the Gounders (a landowning caste) – and found distinct cultural logics driving son preference in each. Among Gounders, the preference was rooted in ensuring male heirs for ancestral land transfer. Among Thevars, it was tied to family honor. In some villages dominated by these groups, the child sex ratio fell to as low as 625 girls for every 1,000 boys – among the most extreme imbalances recorded anywhere. This caste-specific variation shows that son preference is not monolithic; it adapts to local cultural logic while maintaining the same harmful outcome.

Modernity and traditional values: a paradox that worsens the problem 🔗

A common assumption is that economic development and urbanization naturally erode practices like female feticide. The evidence from India directly challenges this assumption. In reality, modernity has in some ways intensified son preference rather than dissolving it.

Ultrasound technology as an enabler 🔗

Before sex determination technology was available, families could not act on son preference before birth – they could only practice infanticide after. The introduction of ultrasound in the 1970s, and its widespread availability by the 1990s, changed this completely. As reported in The Public Health Advocate, the technology skyrocketed in use among upper-class and upper-caste communities first, precisely because they could afford it. What was meant to be a diagnostic tool for fetal health became the mechanism for acting on pre-existing cultural biases – selectively and systematically.

Wealth does not reduce son preference 🔗

One of the most counterintuitive findings in this field is that higher income does not reduce female feticide. Data from Haryana shows that the sex ratio at birth for upper-caste women was 127 males per 100 females – far more skewed than among lower-caste women (105 males per 100 females). Wealthier families simply had greater access to sex determination technology and the resources to pay for private abortions. The Frontiers in Global Women’s Health review confirms that son preference in India persists across education levels, with some studies finding that more educated women in states like Punjab invested more in sons than in daughters – not less.

This paradox can be explained by the fact that modernity brings smaller desired family sizes. When families shift from wanting five or six children to two or three, the pressure to ensure at least one son intensifies. Fewer children means less room for chance – and more motivation to use technology to guarantee a male heir.

Urbanization and persisting bias 🔗

Urban areas in India show their own distinct pattern of son preference. States like Delhi, Haryana, and Punjab – among India’s most urbanized – also rank among its worst for child sex ratios. According to Census 2011 data, Haryana recorded a sex ratio of just 879 females per 1,000 males, and Delhi just 868. The cultural values driving son preference did not disappear with urban migration – they simply found new technological tools to act on them more efficiently.

Consequences of gender imbalance: what a missing female population does to a society 🔗

The effects of decades of female feticide and infanticide are not abstract. They show up in crime statistics, marriage markets, trafficking networks, and the psychological fabric of communities. A society that systematically eliminates women does not emerge unscathed – it pays a steep and compounding social cost.

The marriage squeeze and bride trafficking 🔗

The most immediate demographic consequence of a surplus male population is what demographers call a marriage squeeze – a shortage of women of marriageable age that leaves large numbers of men unable to find partners through conventional means. Research highlighted by the Université de Montréal documents that in states like Haryana and Punjab, where the shortage of women is most severe, the illegal trafficking of poor women from other parts of India has grown substantially. These women are often bought and sold as brides, subjected to exploitation, and denied basic rights within their new households. The very practice meant to assert male dominance ends up commodifying women even further.

Increased crime and social instability 🔗

The link between skewed sex ratios and rising crime rates is well-documented in academic research. A study published in Demography, using data from the India Human Development Survey and the 2001 Census, found statistically significant associations between male-heavy sex ratios at the district level and higher rates of theft, breaking and entering, and assault. The researchers pointed to a “supply of offenders” dynamic: communities with disproportionately more men – especially young, unemployed, and unmarried men – experience elevated rates of criminal behavior.

Political scientists Valerie Hudson and Andrea Den Boer, cited by the Harvard Kennedy School Student Policy Review, argue that India’s surplus male population – estimated at over 30 million – tends to be drawn from lower socioeconomic classes with limited employment prospects and little chance of achieving social stability through marriage. These men, they contend, are statistically more likely to join violent groups or engage in antisocial behavior as a substitute for the social status they cannot attain through conventional pathways. India’s most gender-imbalanced northern and northwestern states are also, notably, among its most troubled by organized violence.

Violence against women intensifies, not decreases 🔗

There is a cruel irony at the center of this crisis: the scarcity of women created by feticide and infanticide does not make surviving women more valued – it makes them more vulnerable. Analysis of India’s sex ratio trends shows that a scarcity of women correlates with higher rates of abduction, sexual violence, and trafficking, as women come to be seen as a scarce resource to be competed over rather than as full human beings. Research in Nursing for Women’s Health also documents that areas where dowry-related violence is highest tend to have the most skewed adult and child sex ratios – suggesting that the same cultural systems that devalue daughters also intensify violence against wives.

Economic and demographic ripple effects 🔗

The consequences extend into the economy as well. Studies on India’s declining sex ratio highlight that reduced female labor market participation – itself partly a product of discriminatory attitudes toward women – affects economic productivity and growth. An aging population without enough women also creates long-term demographic instability, as fertility rates decline and the dependency ratio increases. These effects compound over generations, meaning that the cultural decisions made today about the value of female lives will shape India’s social and economic landscape for decades.

Legal frameworks and their limits 🔗

India has enacted several laws to address these practices. The Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Act of 1994 made it illegal to use prenatal diagnostic tools for sex determination. The Beti Bachao Beti Padhao campaign, launched in 2015, aimed to shift cultural attitudes and promote girls’ education, particularly in districts with the most skewed sex ratios. According to analysis in the Harvard Kennedy School Student Policy Review, these government interventions have had limited measurable impact on the underlying cultural preference for sons, with critics noting that awareness campaigns cannot substitute for structural change in inheritance laws, education, and economic opportunity for women.

The challenge is enforcement. IOSR journal research points out that illegal sex determination tests continue in both urban and rural settings, often through informal networks and unregulated clinics. Laws framed on paper have not translated into rights experienced in daily life – a gap that researchers consistently identify as the central obstacle to meaningful change.

The cultural shift that legislation alone cannot deliver 🔗

The persistence of female feticide and infanticide in India across decades of legal prohibition and awareness campaigns points to a fundamental truth: these practices are not primarily sustained by ignorance. They are sustained by a cultural logic that makes sons feel economically, spiritually, and socially necessary in ways that daughters are not. That logic is embedded in inheritance systems, religious practice, marriage customs, and the everyday economic realities of poor and middle-class families alike.

The Frontiers in Global Women’s Health review concludes that genuinely addressing son preference requires redesigning the social determinants that sustain it – equitable inheritance laws for women, improved educational and economic opportunities for girls, community-level dialogue about gender norms, and nutrition and healthcare parity from birth. Without tackling these foundations, legal prohibitions and government schemes will continue to treat symptoms rather than causes.

The consequences of gender imbalance – trafficking, violence, social instability, demographic crisis – are not unfortunate side effects of cultural tradition. They are the direct and predictable results of a system that decided, over and over again, that female lives mattered less. Reversing that requires more than policy. It requires a fundamental reckoning with who a society decides is worth being born.

What do you think? If economic factors like dowry and inheritance are key drivers of son preference, would giving daughters equal inheritance rights meaningfully reduce female feticide – or are the cultural roots too deep for legal reforms alone to shift? And considering that wealthier, more educated families in India show higher rates of sex-selective abortion, what does that tell us about the relationship between development and gender equality?

References

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