male-biased sex ratios at birth (Punjab and Haryana).

I address potential alternative interpretations of the findings. First, based on evidence that poor maternal nutrition might be associated with the sex of the child (Mathews, Johnson, and Neil, 2008; Almond and Mazumder, 2011), I estimate the timing of the emergence of anemia differences. If predetermined health affects the sex of the child, differential incidence of anemia between women with a first-born girl or boy should be present at the time of birth (and even _before_ , but this cannot be verified with the data at hand). The results indicate no differential incidence of anemia close to the time of birth. Women with a first-born girl start developing anemia approximately one and a half years after birth. Therefore, biological differences do not seem to explain the anemia pattern, which is rather consistent with behavioral factors. Second, I test whether the estimates are affected by selective reporting bias according to which women might under-report female births, and find no evidence supporting it. Third, I show nonparametric evidence that the decreasing share of women as a function of their age (found for the uneducated) cannot be affected by the diffusion of the practice of sex-selective abortion.<sup>4</sup> Finally, I check whether women suffer other forms of overt discrimination as direct ‘punishment’ for having had a first-born daughter. I do not find evidence that they are punished through withholding of food (or receive less iron supplements), while they appear to be more likely to have been the victims of severe domestic violence inflicted by their husbands. The effect on violence is specific to the period close to the time of birth and to uneducated women. Therefore, increased violence is possibly contributing to higher mortality among women with daughters as the result of strong preference for male children. All these findings are consistent with a model in which son preference induces women whose first birth is female into a fertility behavior that is medically known to be associated with higher risk of maternal mortality and morbidity. This pattern is especially found among uneducated women who have poorer access to maternal care. These women develop anemia at a higher rate and appear to suffer a higher risk of death.

This paper is related to three strands of literature. The first is the recent literature on the age distribution of missing women (Anderson and Ray, 2010, 2012; World Bank, 2011). While previous studies use aggregate data on mortality and find that most women are missing in adulthood, this paper uses individual-level data to examine the possible channels generating this phenomenon.

Second, it is related to the literature on the effects of son preference on children’s health. Sonpreferring fertility stopping rules can in fact lead to less resources being allocated to female children within the household even _unintentionally_ on the part of parents. Jayachandran and Kuziemko

> 4Abortion was legalized in 1971 in India. In 1994, the Government of India passed the Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques Regulations and Misuse Act (PNDT Act) to make the use of ultrasound or amniocentesis for the purpose of sex determination illegal. However, there is evidence that this Law is often ignored and not enforced (Arnold, Kishor, and Roy, 2002; Bhalotra and Cochrane, 2010).

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