Caste, Kinship and Sex Ratios in India

Tanika Chakraborty (tanika@iimcal.ac.in) and Sukkoo Kim

No 13828, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper explores the relationship between kinship institutions and sex ratios in India at the turn of the twentieth century. Since kinship rules varied by caste, language, religion and region, we construct sex-ratios by these categories at the district-level using data from the 1901 Census of India for Punjab (North), Bengal (East) and Madras (South). We find that the female to male sex ratio varied inversely by caste-rank, rose as one moved from the North to the East and then to the South, was lower for Hindus than Muslims, and was lower for the northern Indo-Aryan rather than the southern Dravidian speaking peoples. We also find that the female deficit was greater in wheat growing regions and in areas with higher rainfall and alluvial soil. We argue that these systematic patterns in the data are largely explained by variations in the institution of family, kinship and inheritance.

JEL-codes: J12 N35 O17 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cwa, nep-dev and nep-his
Note: DAE
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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