Declining Sex Ratio of the Child Population in India: A Decomposition Analysis

If the omission/misreporting of ages of male/female children is assumed to be equal, child sex ratio is the result of sex ratio at birth and sex differential in mortality. This study aims to understand the impact of both the sex ratio at birth and sex differential in mortality on the change in child sex ratio during 2001-2011 in India and its major states. The result shows that in 2011, at the national level, the skewed child sex ratio could be explained due to distortion in sex ratio at birth by two-thirds and in high female child mortality by about one-third. Whereas, in 2001, the contribution of sex ratio at birth was two-fifths and the contribution of high female child mortality was three-fifths towards determining the child sex ratio.