Gender Preference and India's Missing Girls: Evidence from Some Selected States of India

Arunkumar Acharya, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

In the last few decades, India has developed both economic and social sector, but the evidence shows that the prevailing gender discrimination is one the major problem in the Indian society. The preference of male child and discrimination against the female child causing the rapid disappearance of female child in India. According to Census 2001, there are 35 million female are missing compared to male population, which was 32 million during 1991, where the sex ratio (0-6 age group) has decline from 940 in 1992-93 to 925 in 1998-99 female per thousand male. So this study is an attempt to shows the effect of gender preference causing the missing of total number of female in Indian society, which has considered as a fact of intolerance and violence against the women. For the present study, data has been taken from the Census of India and National Family Health Survey-I&II.