# **ENDNOTES**

- 1 Research Professor, Dept of Sociology, Univ of Maryland, College Park MD. mdasgupta@gmail.com

- This research was done for <mark>a background paper for the W</mark> orld Bank Europe and Central Asia region’s <mark>2014 report “Missing Women in the South Caucasus” (P145209) led by María E. Dávalos. It was</mark> partially funded by the World Bank’s <mark>Umbrella Facility for Gender Equality [TF014545].  V</mark> aluable feedback from Nistha Sinha, Maria <mark>Dávalos,</mark> Garik Hayrapetyan, and Peter Miovic is gratefully acknowledged, as also invaluable help from Patrick Gerland of the United Nations.

- 2 Unfortunately, the more recent surveys in the region (such as the Integrated Household Survey in Georgia and the Integrated Living Conditions Survey in Armenia) are focused on economic issues and do not collect the birth history data needed to analyze patterns of sex-selection.

- 3 They also capture both prenatal and postnatal sex-selection.

- 4 See for example Park and Cho (1995) on Korea, and Zeng Yi et al (1993) on China.

- 5  One reason for lower birth registration in the Soviet era was that their definition of a live birth was more restrictive than that of the WHO. The WHO definition has been used in all the Reproductive and Health Surveys and Demographic and Health Surveys conducted in the South Caucasus countries. Duthe et al (2010) point out that after independence the registration system deteriorated, mainly because administrative control of the population weakened.

- 6 The DHS and RHS surveys estimate that between 2000-05 and 2005-10, birth registration rose from 96.4% to 99.6% in Armenia, and from 93% to 97% in Georgia.  In Azerbaijan, an estimated 93.6% of births had been registered by the DHS 2006 survey, but this was the last such survey.

- 7 This is also related to birth order, with the excess mortality typically concentrated among second and higher birth order daughters.  See Das Gupta (1987) on India, Choe (1987) on the Republic of Korea, and Muhuri and Preston (1991) on Bangladesh, and many subsequent studies in East and South Asia.

- 8 There are several studies on this, for example Lapidus (1978), Heyat (2002), and Matossian (1962).

- 9 The increase in Azerbaijan may be primarily in the agrarian sector.  Estimates vary: the UN Statistical Division estimates that labor-force participation rates fell between 1990 and 2010 amongst both women and men in all three South Caucasus countries (unstats.un.org, accessed 1 March 2014).

- 10 See for example World Bank (2000), Dudwick et al (eds) 2002, and the early DHS and RHS reports.

- 11 The data from the vital registration systems of the South Caucasus countries show a similar pattern, but are subject to the caveats above on changes in the coverage of birth registration.

- 12 The same may be the case in the North Caucasus, which is part of Russia.

- 13 The USSR was dissolved in December 1991, so any demographic responses would be expected to be seen in the data from 1992 onwards.  However, the dissolution could be foreseen in from events during the period just preceding it.  In Georgia, the estimated GDP per capita began declining already by 1990, perhaps reflecting some disruption accompanying the anticipated dissolution.

- 14 Financial Times Special Report on Azerbaijan, March 12, 2015.

- 15 Nandi and Deolalikar (2013) argued that the ban may have helped avert rises in sex-selection, but they are unable to establish that the bans in neighboring states were implemented equally well.

- 16 A plethora of studies using cross-sectional data from many settings indicate that exposure to the media significantly influences norms and behaviors, controlling for other factors such as women’s education. This applies to a range of outcomes.  For example, in Brazil, Thomas, Strauss, and Henriques, (1991) <mark>found that almost all the impact of maternal education on child height can be explained by indicators of access to media-reading papers, watching television, and listening to the radio.</mark> However, these studies do not use randomized data on media exposure.

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