Son Preferences In India

The sex ratio in India has been historically negative or in other words unfavorable to females. Particularly, the sex ratio in juvenile ages i.e. girls in the age group 0-6 years per 1000 boys is worsened. If there is more son preference then the percentage of male children should show a declining trend as number of children increases. This may be more pronounced in case of females who have completed their fertility. In this light, although this study is inspired from the worrying facts of continuously strengthening tendency towards discrimination against women through integration of prevailing traditional gender biased norms and modern technology, but the effort is to understand the extent to which the son preference is prevalent in India and its states. The National Family Health Survey has collected data on the complete birth history of women who are in the reproductive age group i.e. 15-49 years at the time of survey. The data have also been collected on the ‘sex’ of each child. From this data, sex of the child at any given parity and number of children produced by a women can be easily identified. This data has been analyzed to study the proportion of male children for women giving a specified number of children. Ever married women whose ages were more than 35 years on the survey date are considered for the analysis.