Sex Determination and Cultural Constraints

Blue or pink...or taupe?

Depending on where one is conducting fieldwork, learning the biological sex of one's baby before it is born can be illegal. This has been the case for us here in India. Our baby is set to arrive next week, but we still have no idea if it's a boy or a girl. Although once a source of major frustration for us--as we were curious to learn all we could about our little one--now that the birth is imminent it doesn't seem like such a big deal. Still, it's an important social and political issue, so this post is devoted to our experiences with sex determination in India.


Why is prenatal sex determination illegal in some places? The basic reason is that in some populations, males are preferentially desired over female children, and as a result females may be selectively aborted before birth, or neglected and/or killed thereafter. Although this sounds grisly and improbable, in some cases, the numbers are quite staggering. The secondary sex ratio, which is the ratio between sexes at birth (as opposed to at the time of conception) and is the statistic most frequently cited to talk about population sex ratios, should be around 105 boys to 100 girls in a "natural" (i.e., un-tampered-with) situation. In some places, this ratio is highly skewed, with numbers as high as 130 boys to 100 girls.


Why is sex selection considered a problem? Sex selection is a problem not just because it creates population imbalances that have significant social, economic, and reproductive consequences. More importantly, it is a symptom of systematic social inequalities that constitute a violation of women's human rights. Rarely, if ever, does sex selection work in the opposite direction (in favor of girls) at a population-level scale.

This year (2011), India's new census data were released. Since the previous census in 2001, sex ratios have worsened in many parts of the country, especially in the more prosperous and educated states. This is somewhat surprising because typically, as populations become more educated, women's social equality increases. At the same time, India's 2011 census shows that the country's overall infant mortality rate--the number of infant deaths per 1,000 live births--has decreased 30% in the past 10 years. Population growth has also decelerated. The fact that the sex ratio is getting worse in the face of these otherwise positive population trends is alarming. Even among Indian diasporas living in the US and the UK (two countries where prenatal sex determination is legal), the sex ratio is significantly skewed toward males.

To me, this information suggests that it's not India's within-country conditions (such as climate, geography, other demographic trends) that are causing girl babies to die more frequently than boys; it's a sociocultural reason. The pressure to have a boy in India is so intense that, according to recent newspaper reports we've been reading, people who can afford to do so will fly to Dubai and get a sex determination ultrasound or amniocentesis. Some even go so far as to have the sex of their baby surgically altered shortly after birth. Now, of course, there are bright spots--villages or towns with remarkably healthy sex ratios in the midst of a larger region of unfavorable ones, or entire states where the sex ratio resembles what one would expect--but the problem doesn't seem to be going away for India.

India's pervasive sex selection in favor of boys becomes more understandable when one considers the dominant social structure and its concomitant social pressures. In fact, I've spoken with so many women about it that while I can't sympathize, I can certainly empathize. First of all, India's dominant social systems are highly male-biased. Men in most households are still the primary breadwinners. When a woman marries, she moves into her husband's family's household, often bringing along a significant dowry which is usually negotiated in advance as part of the marriage arrangement. Even if no dowry is there (it is technically illegal), the bride's parents transfer a lot of wealth to the groom's family by paying for a lavish multi-day wedding ceremony and gifting their daughter gold jewelry. Because of social pressures to communicate status by displaying wealth (something we Americans also do a lot of, too), parents feel compelled to host ceremonies that stretch the limits of their means. They often save money for years and/or go into serious debt to pay for these ceremonies, much as American parents save and take out loans for their children's college expenses. This means that daughters constitute a financial liability, and this is one reason why a family might not be thrilled about the birth of a daughter, especially if she's not the first daughter.

On the other hand, sons are, in many ways, a form of social and financial security for their parents, at least in the traditional systems. A son brings a bride into the household, who takes over her mother-in-law's domestic responsibilities and allows her to retire. Likewise, good sons traditionally contribute most of their earnings to the family, lessening the financial responsibility of the father and allowing him to retire as well. India has no social security system and very few older-age homes, so this kind of in-built family support continues to be important for aging parents even in urban, wealthy families with access to good health care. Although many scholars claim that the joint family is dying out in India, just a little over half of the women I work with on a regular basis live in joint families, and I find that it's still the pervasive ideal communicated in popular media like blockbuster Bollywood films. This trend may be changing, but it's not gone yet.

Because boys are so important to the integrity of family structure, married women are often pressured by their in-laws to bear sons. If they fail to do so, they may be abused or threatened. In many cases of female infanticide, it's not the birth mother but another family member who kills the baby. Naturally, under this kind of pressure, women want to have sons. I would, too, if I lived with and worked for my mother-in-law and she was always breathing down my neck and punishing me and making my home-bound life miserable. In this way, the woman-oppressive system gets perpetuated by women.

Since starting my research, I've met several women who have something like 6 or 7 daughters and one son (he's usually the youngest of the bunch). I've met others who have 6 or 7 daughters and no sons. These women are always financially very strained and emotionally very stressed. Women's number-one stressor across the board, at least in my research, is getting their daughters married. Wealthy or not, this is a big social responsibility for a parent, and other family members will exert significant pressure on him or her to get the daughter settled and married earlier rather than later. This means that in many cases, women don't complete a high-school level education. And we all know that less education means less empowerment means less capability to stand up for one's rights in oppressive scenarios. Once again, the family perpetuates the system.

So given this context, for us the choice was pretty clear.

No choice--in terms of knowing that is.

Well, no legal choice. As the above discussion should illustrate, plenty of people choose to pursue illegal means of sex determination through bribing technicians or traveling to countries where it remains legal. But laws are there for a reason.