Caste, kinship and sex ratios in India
By: Tanika Chakraborty, Sukkoo Kim.
Contributors: Kim, Sukkoo.; National Bureau of Economic Research.
Series: NBER working paper series -- working paper 13828; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research : Online) -- working paper no. 13828.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2008
Place of publication: Cambridge, MA
Language: eng
Format: Electronic resource
Description: "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"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
Notes: Title from PDF file as viewed on 6/13/2008.

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