Too Many Men Too Few Women (Social Consequences of Gender Imbalance in India and China

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The journey of this book began in late 2012 when the Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies approached me. And women. Considerable research had already been done on the causes of the sex ratio imbalance, but there was little on its consequences. I am very grateful to the RGICS for hosting the workshop focusing on the consequences of the skewed sex ratio in India and China. Sushree Panigrahi, a fellow at the Institute, was in charge of the project and was a delight to work with. Dhanashri Brahme and Ena Singh of the UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund) pitched in with additional funding to bring scholars from around the world to participate in the workshop. Many thanks to them and to the UNFPA for being crusaders on this issue, and for supporting an array of studies that shed light on the gender imbalance problem. I must also thank the then Editor of the Economic and Political Weekly, C. Rammanohar Reddy, for agreeing to bring out six of the papers presented at the workshop in the journal. The book has thus received wide pre-publicity, and I am very grateful to Orient Blackswan for agreeing to bring out the complete book, consisting of 11 chapters and an introduction. My warm thanks to the OBS team-Vidya Rao, Roopa Sharma, and especially Proteeti Banerjee, who took charge of editing the volume.

I would also like to thank many of the experts who gave valuable comments at the workshop-P. M. Kulkarni, Mary John, Anuja Agrawal, M. D. Vemuri, Saraswati Raju, Reetika Khera and T. V. Sekher. Two anonymous referees reviewed the manuscript and I am sure their suggestions have helped improve the chapters. My friend Rajni Palriwala agreed to write a chapter at short notice to bring in the all-India policy perspective. Paro Mishra, my doctoral student and a contributor to the volume, rendered invaluable help with workshop logistics and the proofs of the book.

The gender balance in Asia is significantly shaped by the T male-biased sex ratios of two of its most populous countries, China and India. According to the UN Population Division, China's sex ratio at birth (SRB) in 2010-15 was 116 boys to 100 girls; in India, the figure was 111 (The Economist, April 2015). Both countries have shown some improvement in recent years- China's SRB is down from a peak of 121 and fourteen of its provinces with high sex ratios are beginning to show a downward trend, while India's is down from a peak of about 113 (Das Gupta et al. 2009; SRS 2012). Despite these improvements, the SRBS still remain adverse, and there is continuing, albeit lessening, daughter aversion and son preference. Rapid fertility declines in the two countries, resulting from China's one child policy and India's two-child norm, combined with son-preference and the advent of sex determination technologies, has contributed to the birth of fewer girls. As a result of the coincidence of these factors, both countries have an excess of males and a shortage of females. United Nations projections for India and China for 2015 suggest that there are 25.4 million excess males under the age of twenty in China, and 25.2 million in India (UNPIN 2015). Such a demographic profile might have far-reaching social consequences, and widespread concern is already being voiced over the likely adverse consequences of highly masculine populations.

Much of the work on adverse sex ratios until now has dealt with the identification, patterns and causes of skewed sex ratios, and not on their consequences (Bhat and Xavier 2007; Coale and Banister 1994; Das Gupta and Li 1999; Dyson 2012; Guilmoto 2012; Miller 2001). The focus of this book is, therefore, on mapping and understanding the consequences. This introduction examines The emerging literature on consequences in China and India, and the chapters in the book (four on China and six on India), written by economists, demographers, and sociologists, explore the consequences through various prisms. A discussion of the chapters is woven into the thematic sections that the introduction has been divided into.

The existing literature can be roughly classified under six distinct, albeit interconnected themes: (1) Dimensions of the marriage squeeze; (i) Effects on marriage transactions (dowry, bride price) and on economic behaviour, (iii) Effect on men's sexual behaviour and health; (iv) Surplus males, crime and violence against women; (v) Effect on women's status and gender equity prospects; and (vi) Policies to address the imbalanced sex ratio and its social consequences. Much of the academic exploration in these areas has, until now, come from China which has a much larger male surplus; the literature on India is comparatively sparse, with many of the consequences still waiting to be explored.

**Contents and Sample Pages**