"Missing women" A. Sen

University Degree Business and Administrative studies

Why are all those women missing?

Amartya Sen coined the concept of "missing women” more than a decade ago. The term refers to the terrible deficit of women in substantial parts of Asia and North Africa, due to sex bias in relative care (Sen, 2003). The numerous debates sprung to explain this phenomenon. They range from quite narrow explanations, like sexist East vs. less sexist West, to influence of biological factors, that contribute to distorted female-male ratios. Amartya Sen suggests a different approach, why these women are missing. His analysis incorporates the combination of political, economic and cultural reasons, which refuses the simplistic explanations purely based on one or two features. This analysis mainly based on the broadened view of social choice theory.

There are several superficial views that attempt to explain this deficit of women. Amartya Sen in his article More than 100 million Women are Missing (1990) gives a quick overview why East-West theory and economic development theory do not adequately answer the posed question. East vs. West, which is based on cultural contrast, is flawed because it ignores the sharp diversity within each region. Not all Asian countries have this problem and few if any Western countries are free of gender biases completely. Economic development explains the problem as the consequence of underdevelopment and poverty. The fact that only poor countries experience this problem is true, but not all poor counties have it. Moreover, “the fact that sex ratios have been falling as aggregate income has been rising seems inconsistent with a purely economic view of missing women” (Chamarbagwala & Ranger, 2006).

The explanation of women deficit, proposed by Oster (2005), is based on medical findings which suggests that “women infected with the Hepatitis B virus tend to give birth to fewer girls than healthy women, with the latter attributing up to 20% of India’s missing girls to the virus” (Klassen & Wink, 2003). If that is the case, there are still 80% women missing that require close investigation. The criticism of Oster view includes the following facts: lack of comprehensive data for India, which makes any practical analysis untrustworthy at best and “a calculation of missing women due to the virus impossible essentially” (Chamarbagwala & Ranger, 2006). Thus, the questions, why women are missing and why this issue is unique to certain regions only, are not fully answered with above explanations.

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How are those women missing? It would be a mistake to think that 100 million were murdered out in the open. The means employed are not those brutally obvious. Feticide, infanticide and fatal neglect along with wide discrimination are among top practices. According to numbers provided by The Hunger Project (2000) between 3 -5 million female fetuses are aborted in India each year. The one of many examples is a clinic in Bombay, 7999 out of 8000 aborted fetuses were female. The Hunger Project reports 10,000 cases of female infanticide annually in India. Because of unreported cases, the real figure is probably much higher. Fatal neglect includes undernourishment, indifference to sickness/diseases, and adult labor demand of Indian girls starting the age of five. The Hunger Project in South Asia describes other discriminating and harmful practices. Beating up of pregnant women, which is not a rare case; the unborn child can be harmed in the womb, born underweight, miscarried or stillborn. In adolescence, the girl in India isthe victim of the so-called "courtship violence" by discouraged male suitors. In India, 25,000 women are murdered or maimed in dowry disputes each year. In Bangladesh, 200 women are murdered each year by sulfuric acid attacks. In widowhood and old age, the women are often subject to psychological and physical abuse, including homicide (Hunger Project, 2000). The scope of the problem cannot be underestimated, it is clearly “one of the more momentous, and neglected, problems facing the world today” (Sen, 1990).

Why is it happening? Why these kinds of values and preferences dominate in these regions? Economic arguments, which attempt to explain this discriminating preference to boys over girls, centre on costs of raising both. Since women traditionally become part of their husband’s extended family, they are not expected to contribute to the financial support of their parents in old age, while having sons has a positive effect on the expected standard of living of parents (Chamarbagwala & Ranger, 2006). Especially, in times of uncertainty and reforms, parents in old ages cannot expect social system to take care of them. Thus, this “parental contract” (Croll, 2001) with their sons is the only way for their survival when they are old. Parent care has become the central aim of family building, where expenses on children are viewed as future investments. Sons guarantee the returns, and girls are known to be a loss. The economic development in South and East Asia brought the mobility that scares parents even more. Thus, they would like to have several sons in order to build a safety net, whereas girls are still perceived as an additional liability (Croll, 2001). Along with economic constraints, certain government policies and economic reforms contributed to this desperate preference for sons. Chinese leaders have tended to reduce the overall attention to equality issues and discrimination problems in the country since 1979. However, mostly the “one-child family” policy has lead to increasing preference for boys, and severe neglect of girls. Economic reforms in China also brought the increased costs of health/medical services, which have had the greatest negative impact on women and female children (Sen, 1990). Chamarbagwala & Ranger highlight dowry practice, which imposes a second direct and significant cost on the bride’s parents. Although, the anti-dowry violence criminal laws are in place, there is enough evidence to support that dowry payments are not only demanded but that they often represent a severe financial burden for the household of the bride (Greenberg 2003).

Rising per capita income and fast economic development in India and especially, China should have solved the problem, and the number of girls should have increased over time. After all, richer parents do not have to rely only on their sons for their survival in old age. In addition, improving opportunities for gainful employment may give women the resources to contribute to the financial support of their parents. “The availability of sex-selective abortion, however, complicates the picture. If the cost of aborting a daughter is lower than the cost of raising a girl, a slight increase in income might allow parents the choice to abort their daughter without, however, giving them the financial freedom to raise a girl”(Chamarbagwala & Ranger, 2006).

While the above economic aspects work through family budget constraints, non-economic factors might also be present in the overall picture. Quite simply having a son might be more satisfying for parents (Chamarbagwala & Ranger, 2006). For example, there is a certain amount of shame attached to depending on daughters, which is viewed as last resort and only turned to in absence of sons (Croll, 2001). Apparently, eliminating economic constraints would not be enough to give daughters the same privileges, as sons have. Culturally, sons are the centre of life-cycle events. Most celebrations, prayers and everyday conversations are evolving around sons (Croll, 2001). Example of a folk song from Uttar Pradesh, India gives a very clear picture of how strong the son preference is:

Oh, God, I beg of you,

I touch your feet time and again,

Next birth don't give me a daughter,

Give me Hell instead...

In China, the status of women long has been determined by the number of sons she has had; until young wife had a son, she was treated worse than hired servants. Family lines are prolonged only through sons. Thus, their value has not been much influenced by the work and education opportunities for women. According to Croll (2001), contributions when made by daughters are perceived as short term or they are not fully recognized. The daughters’ support is not seen or acknowledged; often it is viewed as them paying their debt to the family. In addition, there is a strong differentiation between male and female activities. According to the worldview in this region, happiness is in harmony of two, the two unique sets of roles for men and women that cannot be substituted by another gender. Women who have never been expected to contribute to the family, or support parents financially when they are old, are still strongly perceived as a loss and extra liability (Croll, 2001).

There is no single factor responsible for why those women are missing. It is the combination of many notions, such as economic, political and social. As shown by Croll, in East and South Asia, the phenomenon of “missing girls” has worsened as economies have developed, as the status of women has improved, and as female educational attainment has risen. This is the brightest proof of Sen’s validity of capability approach. If the well-being were judged only according to income numbers, the picture would be quite different. However, if we look beyond that, and explore who gets the benefits and what is done with them, than the true nature of well-being is discovered. As Sen points out in his view on Social Choice Theory, what lies behind the preferences should be taken into consideration, not just the mere fact of such. He suggests to measure the well-being of people, not by what they have, but how can they use it. The development according to Amartya Sen is ‘‘what the person is free to do and achieve in pursuit of whatever goals or values he or she regards as important’’ (1985). The sex-selective abortion had become possible due to the technological advancement and economic development. But it has brought 3-5 million unborn baby girls to die annually in India. Is this kind of development can be viewed as desirable? Cultural cause of low sex ratios in East and South Asia is the main reason of discrimination. Actually, economic constraints are also influenced by cultural aspects, making girls even more costly than boys. The importance of culture creates additional challenges for policy makers. Instead of relying on rising income and the availability of better economic opportunities for women, cultural obstacles have to be overcome (Chamarbagwala & Ranger, 2006).

References

Chamarbagwala, R. M., Ranger, M. (2006), India's Missing Women: Disentangling Cultural, Political and Economic Variables CAEPR Working Paper No. 2006-021. Retrieved on January 24, 2008, from

Croll, E. J.(2001) Amartya Sen’s 100 Million Missing Women. Oxford Development Studies. Vol. 29, No. 3,: 225-241.

Fabienne, P. (2003). Gender and Foundation of Social Choice: The Role of Situated Agency. Feminist Economics 9(2 – 3), 13 – 32. Retrieved January 23, 2008, from http://web.ebscohost.com/bsi/results?vid=4&hid=117&sid=e4700007-3d0d-4a3a-bbbd-0bf6135cd2a6%40sessionmgr9

Greenberg, J. G. (2003), Criminalizing dowry deaths: the Indian experience’, Journal of Gender, Social Policy and the Law 11(2), 801–846. Retrieved on January 28, 2008 from www.wcl.american.edu/journal/genderlaw/11/greenberg.pdf

Klasen, S., Wink, C (2003). “Missing Women”: Revisiting Debate. Feminist Economics 9(2 – 3), 263 – 299. Retrieved January 24, 2008, from http://web.ebscohost.com/bsi/results?vid=6&hid=117&sid=e4700007-3d0d-4a3a-bbbd-0bf6135cd2a6%40sessionmgr9

Oster, E. (2005),Hepatitis B and the Case of the Missing Women, Harvard University Center for International Development Graduate Student Working Paper # 7, Cambridge, MA.

Sen, A. (2003) Missing women—revisited: Reduction in female mortality has been counterbalanced by sex selective abortions. British Medical Journal. 327(7427): 1297–1298. Retrieved on January 29, 2008 from

Sen, A. (1990). More Than 100 Million Women are Missing. The New York Reviews of Books. Vol. 37, No. 20: 1-9.

Sen, A. (November 2001). Many Faces of Gender Inequality. TheFrontline. November 2001.

The Hunger Project. (2000, June-August). South Asia Online Briefing Program: The condition of women in South Asia. Retrived on January 20, 2008 from http://www.thp.org/sac/unit4/index.html

Wallace, L. (2004). Freedom as Progress. Finance and Development. September 2004: 4-7.