“Bridging the GAP ?”: The interplay between fertility transition and birth masculinity in India

Despite impressive fertility decline and drastic increase in gender ratio (male to female), little attention has been given to understand the relationship between these two aspects of reproductive behaviour in India. Using unit level data from three waves of Demographic Health Survey (National Family Health Survey), the present study tries to unfold the relationship between fertility pattern and birth masculinity. The analysis reveals that son preference is embedded in Indian family system as efficient family limitation behaviour, though its manifestation varies with stages of fertility transition as well as its regional variations.

Key words: birth masculinity, fertility, parity progression ratio, sex ratio at birth, latent variable model, bivariate LISA, etc.

JEL Classification: J13, J16, C12, C31, Z13, etc