Sex-selective abortions may have stopped the birth of 23 million girls since 1970
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A recent large scale analysis of worldwide population data suggests sex-selective abortions have led to at least 23 million fewer girls being born, mainly in China and India. Sons are valued over daughters in many societies, for both social and economic reasons. As fewer children are being born worldwide, there has been an increase in families aborting female fetuses in an effort to have at least one son.

Photo of newborn girls from New Scientist

When examining data from 1970 to 2017 from 202 countries, researchers found excess male births had occurred in some years in Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, China, Georgia, Hong Kong, India, South Korea, Montenegro, Taiwan, Tunisia and Vietnam. These trends seem to be reversing, however.

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In every nation except Vietnam, the team found that the skew in sex ratios is returning to normal. This seems to be true even in China, which the analysis says accounts for 51 per cent of the missing female births. In 2005, 118 boys were born in China for every 100 girls, but by 2017 this had dropped to 114. “Whether the downward trend in China continues remains to be seen,” says Chao.

Birth gender ratios have already returned to normal in Georgia, South Korea and Hong Kong. But Chao’s team found that the fall in excess boys in India – which the analysis suggests accounts for 46 per cent of the missing girls – is only slight. With 12 million girls born each year compared with 7 million in China, reducing the rate of sex selection in India is crucial for ending the practice worldwide, says Sabu George of the Centre for Women’s Development Studies in New Delhi.

Whether the trend towards normal continues is yet to be seen. The issue is complex as many parents in countries such as India rely on their adult male sons to support them in their old age. Thus, as is the case with many global bioethics issues, sex-selective abortion is interwoven with structural and economic problems in vulnerable nations.

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