Abstract
The articles in this volume are suitably relevant within the gender-positioning framework in most countries today, especially the developing ones. They deal with the challenges of sex-selection and consequent gender imbalance in the two most populous countries in the world, India and China. Assembled in three parts, the volume comprises 11 essays in all, four on China and six on India, with a very illuminating overview in the introduction by Ravinder Kaur. The book interestingly brings out appropriate data from the two countries to demonstrate the striking similarities in the way the son preference phenomenon has brought about outcomes in the two Asian giants. Part one of the volume comprising four papers explores the consequences of the phenomenon of son preference, especially aspects of the marriage ‘squeeze’; the second part of the volume has four papers which focus on the social challenges emanating from the marriage squeeze, while the last part looks at aspects of interrogating policy responses.
Kaur expounds on the existing literature in her Introduction ‘Mapping the Consequences of Sex Selection and Gender Imbalance in India and China’ under six themes: dimensions of the marriage squeeze; effects on marriage transactions and thereby on economic behaviour; effects on men’s sexual behaviour and health; aspects of a higher male ratio and its effects on crime and violence against women; effects on women’s status and gender equity prospects; and policies to address the imbalanced sex ratio and social consequences. Most of the literature has so far been from China which has a much larger male surplus than India. In India, studies on the effects of the male surplus have been relatively sporadic, and the literature on the scarcity of women seems to mainly revolve around the marriage squeeze. Kaur concludes that the marriage squeeze in both India and China is likely to bring about different problems, which may be further complicated across regional, caste, class and age hierarchies.
However, as the Introduction indicates, the marriage squeeze phenomenon has also been recorded in the literature in countries that do not have an imbalanced sex ratio, such as Japan (Knight, 1995). Clearly, various factors can combine to generate a marriage squeeze that can affect different segments of the population and outcomes (Jeffery, 2014), including migration, individual socio-economic characteristics (educational and income levels) and changing marital and sexual preferences (Kashyap, Esteve & García-Román, 2015; Kaur et al., 2015; The Economist, 2011). Kaur further discusses the effect of adverse sex ratios on dowries, bride prices and economic behaviour. When brides are scarce and the demand for them is high, a bride price could be the outcome instead of a dowry. While the lowering of dowries may appear to be a positive and unintended outcome of imbalanced sex ratios, dowries still remain the most popular tactic in attaining suitable grooms. Moreover, the demand for a dowry declines only for men with fewer material or social resources at their command.
Pertinent issues relating to possible links between violence and adverse sex ratios are raised in the Introduction. The authors cite literature (Dreze & Khera, 2000; Oldenburg, 1992) indicating that murder rates are recorded to be higher in districts with low female-male ratios, with the conclusion that patriarchal, male-dominated societies are likely to be more violent. Kaur also refers to her 2010 paper to point out the connection between skewed sex ratios and the rise in killings in the name of family honour, notorious in Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh. Further, unmarried, unemployed males in Haryana are more likely to join older men in supporting the regressive stances and actions of extrajudicial bodies in the state (Chowdhry, 2005, 2011).
The four papers in the first section explore the consequences of a son preference phenomenon. In their paper (‘Signs of Change? Sex Ratio Imbalance and Shifting Social Practices in Northern India’), Mattias Larsen and Ravinder Kaur (2013) report on their survey of 651 randomly selected ever-married women and 83 bachelors in selected villages in Punjab and Haryana. Their major finding is that as a consequence of the skewed sex ratio, modes of reproduction are being affected in ways that may point towards improved sex ratios and greater gender equality in the future. In the same section, Sunita Bose, Katherine Trent and Scott J. South’s paper (‘The Effect of a Male Surplus on Intimate Partner Violence in India’) provides evidence that the increasing masculinisation of India may be detrimental to married women’s well-being, as they are at risk of experiencing greater domestic violence and controlling behaviour from their husbands. Authors such as Eklund (2013), Billig (1991, 1992), Jeffery (2014), Jiang and Sanchez-Barricarte (2012) and many others have discussed the adverse outcomes of a marriage squeeze.
In ‘China’s Marriage Market and Upcoming Challenges for Elderly Men’, Monica Das Gupta, Avraham Ebenstein and Ethan Jennings Sharygin (2010) predict that the marriage squeeze resulting from the current high sex ratios (low female-male ratios at birth) will manifest itself only after a couple of decades. With China currently generating generous economic surpluses based on its large working-age population, it has the time and resources for establishing well-targeted and progressive programmes for old-age support and social protection. The authors argue this would mitigate the hardships faced by the new stream of bachelors resulting from the marriage squeeze, thereby reducing the potential for future social instability. However, the reviewer feels that though such social programmes would be able to provide for old-age support, they cannot alleviate the unrest which might erupt due to the lack of companionship resulting from the marriage squeeze. Patricia Jeffery’s paper (‘Dowry, Daughter Aversion and Demographic Change: A Sociological Critique of the “Marriage Squeeze”’) finds that the relationships between dowry and demographic change is more complex than that suggested by the proponents of the marriage squeeze model. She looks closely at marriage arrangements ‘on the ground’ in order to provide a more fruitful interrogation of the links between daughter aversion, dowry and marriage squeeze. She points out that gender politics is embedded in the rapidly changing economic and political context of a competitive, highly unequal and increasingly consumerist society. Further, long-term political agendas have several challenges, with no place for complacent assumptions that things will work out for the best as a result of inexorable demographic processes.
Three of the four papers in the second part of this volume deal with marriage squeeze. The first two (‘Understanding Marriage Squeeze: Sex Ratio Imbalance, Gender and Social Policy in China’ by Lisa Eklund and ‘“Bare Branches” and the Marriage Market in Rural China: Preliminary Evidence from a Village-level Survey’ by Xiaoyi Jin, Lige Liu, Yan Li, Marcus W. Feldman and Shuzhuo Li) focus on evidence from China of the long-run impact of the male marriage squeeze on the marriage market which has resulted in a huge population of involuntary bachelors. Both papers generally conclude that a male surplus in the marriage market often results in enormous economic pressure on families. The shortage of marriageable women leads to an increase in marriage expenses for men, so families with sons have heavy financial burdens. Since the 1980s, rural men’s marriage expenses, including a new house, new furniture, a bride price and the wedding ceremonies, have grown rapidly. In the case of the Indian state of Haryana (dealt with in the third paper ‘The Dark Side of the Marriage Squeeze: Violence against Cross-region Brides in Haryana’ by Neerja Ahlawat), the negative impacts of the adverse sex ratio include violence towards women as brides are brought and even kidnapped from other states. The last paper in this section, titled ‘Imbalanced Sex-ratios and Cross-region Marriage: The Challenges of Transcending Caste Boundaries’, by Paro Mishra speculates on the future trend in sex ratios and whether it would play a major role in deciding the trajectory of cross-regional marriages. Mishra notes that if over time the sex ratio becomes more balanced then cross-region marriages could decline, and suggest that longitudinal studies could provide some answers.
Part III of the volume titled ‘Interrogating Policy Responses’ contains three papers examining related aspects of governance and the policy space. In their paper, ‘Social Management of Gender Imbalance in China: A Holistic Governance Framework’, Shuzhuo Li, Shang Zijuan and Marcus W. Feldman suggest that within the strategic platform of the Care for Girls campaign, the central government should bring minority populations, such as older bachelors, into the system and improve public policy from their point of view. In addition to special policies for gender imbalance, the system should also be combined with policies concerning social development. Second, the government should ensure the integration of governance objectives from a holistic perspective. They should be concerned about all stakeholders and vulnerable groups affected by gender imbalance, especially the much-neglected older bachelors and sexual minorities, and incorporate them into the social management framework. Third, the participation of civil society should be strengthened.
In her paper ‘Act of Omission and Acts of Commission: The Adverse Juvenile Sex Ratio and the Indian State’, Rajni Palriwala suggests a re-orientation of the Indian government’s policy on women’s employment. She rightly suggests that there needs to be renewed acceptance of the state responsibility in enabling formal, secure employment for women and recognition that an employment-driven approach may be most appropriate for economic growth and development. She also suggests an expansion of public health facilities and infrastructure in terms of locations, possible treatments and re-orientation of public health programmes, without the conditionality of family planning. Special facilities are needed for the treatment of girl child, as also easy access to and improvements in public education, to include curricula that do not reinforce the thinking that girls’ education is only about improving their marriage prospects and family planning. State-provided programmes for universal, living pensions, universal public medical care and other forms of social provision and care for the elderly are also necessary. And priority has to be given to improved sensitisation of the police, judiciary and prosecutors, as well as to establishing institutional mechanisms. A concerted campaign which promotes women’s rights to employment and encourages parents and married daughters to reside together, thus pointing to the advantages of such care, would be a positive step.
In ‘Understanding Policy and Programming on Sex Selection in Tamil Nadu: Ethnographic and Sociological Reflections’, Shahid Perwez strongly argues that the girl-child policies in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu (the cradle baby and girl child protection schemes) do nothing to address the real causes of gender imbalance. This contradicts the findings of an earlier paper by Srinivasan and Bedi (2010) which asserts that Tamil Nadu’s pro-girl-child policies have helped improve the sex ratio, ensuring a 14 per cent decline in the deficit of girls born in the state. Parwez instead asserts that ‘Neither son preference nor female infanticide is contained through the girl child protection scheme’, asserting that government schemes are not likely to succeed as their interventions are not located in an understanding of the cultural contexts of people’s reproductive decisions and their perceived need for sons. Besides, by assuming that only poor people do not want daughters and targeting only below-poverty-line families, policies which pursue a population control agenda by attaching clauses such as compulsory sterilisation after the birth of a daughter, are counter-productive. The monetary amounts offered by government schemes to parents with only daughters are seen as inadequate trade-off for having a son. In the author’s view, observations on greater female autonomy in Tamil Nadu need fresh examination in light of increasing reports on dowry, son preference and sex selection (Chunkath & Athreya, 1997; Kapadia, 1995). Despite the shifts in and criticisms of the state’s two schemes aimed at protecting girls and women, they have continued to be at the centre of all interventions and discourses on the status of the girl child and women in the state. From the perspective of women, the schemes appear fraught with tensions and conflict, both in their conception and in their implementation, unless the situation of women improves. Poor women with hardly any long-term support are left literally holding the baby, with practically no economic and social support (except in the short term from the government). As discussed, the interventions are not based on understanding intricate cultural contexts of reproductive decisions or the perceived need for sons, which are deep-rooted in society giving a higher social status and greater power to women who bear male child. The implementation of the schemes has faced much criticism, given the increasing information on child trafficking carried out in many cases through adoption centres. Intensification of family planning and an emphasis on the small family norm themselves generate pressures from the government to limit the number of children, increasing the urge to have only sons rather than daughters; hence such programmes continue to create and maintain the cultural milieu of a son preference in Tamil Nadu, thus perpetuating female infanticide and sex-selective abortions. These gruesome acts remain acceptable for families wanting to control the number of children they have.
The book covers a wide canvas on the effects of adverse female-male sex ratios on socio-economic conditions in China and India. While examining the impacts on violence and male-female inequity, the papers focus on the institution of marriage, ascribing the violence and inequity to the scarcity of women for marriage. Authors such as Ahlawat and Bose, Trent and Scott opine that in both India and China there is a likely link between the increasingly masculine sex-ratios and the growing incidence of violence of all sorts, especially against women. Similarly, in the literature, Oldenburg (1992) has argued that an adverse sex ratio leads to more violence and, examining further, Dreze and Khera (2000) find that murder rates are indeed higher in districts with low female-male ratios, and conclude that patriarchal, male-dominated societies are likely to be more violent. A connection between skewed sex ratios and ‘honour-killings’ is noted by Kaur (2010). Others have suggested that high levels of enforced bachelorhood may raise levels of crime and violence (Banister, 2004; Edlund et al., 2009). Zhang (The Economist, 2015) argues that due to the increased risk of gender-based violence against women, the rising demand for sex work and the development of trafficking networks, women will be at greater risk. Discussing the shortage of brides, she says, ‘Bare branches [unmarried men] in rich provinces can buy brides or sexual services from women from poorer provinces such as Yunnan and Guangxi.’
This literature has many gaps and one is, as noted by Kaur, that it does not address the implications of skewed sex-ratios for women’s health. Frequent conceptions and abortions and late-term abortions in order to give birth to sons are some of the dangers to health that women face. Emotional distress and familial mistreatment of women who bear daughters are common in India, leading to psychological health issues. Further, the availability of new technologies to conceive and give birth to male child places an even greater burden on women to produce children of the ‘right’ sex.
The volume looks at the issue of the imbalance between the number of men and women mostly in the context of marriage, although this need not be the only concern of this phenomenon. Five of the papers discuss the issue of the marriage squeeze in China and India, demonstrating the negative outcome of this leading to atrocities on women. The other papers, except for the three on policy, deal with other features also related to marriage. The emphasis on marriage, particularly on the marriage squeeze, belies the title of the volume. Interestingly, the chapters on policy and governance do not focus only on concerns of marriage, but on ways in which policies could be strengthened to improve the position of women as individuals, independent entities, thereby raising their value in society. Along with other scholars, Palriwala argues that policy needs to focus on two fronts—addressing the core reasons for son preference and daughter aversion, and the institutional structures that support these practices. Policies need to create a gender-equal environment in the domains of education, health, employment and other entitlements, as these are key to improving the status of girls and women. For example, inheritance laws need to be addressed to make them more gender aware; thus associated residence arrangements that allow daughters and not just sons to provide support to their parents, are crucial for establishing a sounder basis for gender equality. Palriwala also suggests that universal old-age pensions may succeed better in undercutting the differential value of sons and daughters. Encouraging equal investments in the education of both sons and daughters and removing obstacles to women’s employment are likely to be the most significant policies for removing gender imbalance.
Reviewer’s Note
In India, there have been early discussions of the possible links between violence and adverse sex ratios. In a much-noted paper, Oldenburg (1992) argues that sex ratios tend to be more masculine in areas that are more violence-prone and where muscle power is needed to protect and acquire property. Thus, murder rates tend to be higher in the high sex ratio districts of Uttar Pradesh. Examining further the relationship between crime, gender and society, Dreze and Khera (2000) find that murder rates are indeed higher in districts with low female-male ratios, and conclude that patriarchal, male-dominated societies are likely to be more violent. Kaur (2010) points to a connection between skewed sex ratios and another kind of violence that has been on the rise in Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh—the so-called ‘honour-killings’. Others have suggested that high levels of enforced bachelorhood may raise levels of crime and violence (Banister, 2004; Edlund et al., 2009).
Men who are employed often hold low-status jobs, such as that of a police constable or a bus conductor, but are married to highly educated girls. Women’s education matters only if she is gainfully employed in the government sector. This results in incompatibility and sometimes leads to family violence (Ahlawat, 2005, 2009, 2013).
The arguments given by the authors in the volume naturally lead the way to a more concerted and wider debate on the way women’s labour force participation is to be considered. The greater focus needs to be on ways in which women could become independent economically, and thereby gain confidence and voice, as explored in the papers in the last segment of this volume. However, these aspects do not get any coverage in the papers in the earlier two parts. The volume would have been richer if evidence presented in the earlier papers also dealt with ways in which women face constraints in their access to education, health, land rights, social status, skill development and jobs. Such constraints force women to consider marriage as their only financial security. Thus an expansion and emphasis of these diverse male-female equity aspects would have done greater justice to the title of the volume.