Missing Women: Some Recent Controversies on Levels and Trends in Gender Bias in Mortality

Stephan Klasen

No 168, Ibero America Institute for Econ. Research (IAI) Discussion Papers from Ibero-America Institute for Economic Research

Abstract: This paper discusses two recent controversies surrounding levels and trends in the number of ‘missing women’ in the world. First, the impact of fertility decline on gender bias in mortality is examined. Contrary to the expectations of some authors, fertility decline has not generally led to an intensification of gender bias in mortality. Second, the paper finds that the claim that a substantial portion of ‘missing women’ is due to higher sex ratios at birth linked to hepatitis B prevalence in the affected regions is on rather weak foundations, while there is substantial evidence countering this claim.

Keywords: Missing women; fertility decline; Hepatitis B; sex-selective abortions; gender bias in mortality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J16 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 17 pages
Date: 2008-01-15
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev and nep-hea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www2.vwl.wiso.uni-goettingen.de/ibero/working_paper_neu/DB168.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:got:iaidps:168

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Ibero America Institute for Econ. Research (IAI) Discussion Papers from Ibero-America Institute for Economic Research Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sabine Jaep ().