Sex selection abortions will lead to about 6.8 million fewer female births in India and Uttar Pradesh will see the highest number of missing girl child, a new study said.
Researchers from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Saudi Arabia, and Universite de Paris, France did the study. It was published in PLos One journal.
The study showed that the cumulative number of missing female births during 2017 to 2030 is projected to be 6.8 million. The average annual number of missing female births between 2017 and 2025 is projected to be 4,69,000 per year and is projected to increase to 5,190,00 per year for 2026- 2030 period. In Uttar Pradesh, the cumulative number of missing female births is projected at two million from 2017 to 2030.
The researchers said that 17 among the 21 Indian States/Uts with high quality birth data showed a positive effective of son preference on the SRB. The highest sex ratio at birth’ concentrated was seen most in northwestern States/UTs.
The researchers said that there was an imbalance in India in the ‘sex ratio at birth’ (SRB) since the 1970s due to the emergence of prenatal sex selection and the cultural preference for male babies.
Contrary to other countries affected by such imbalances, the researchers said that India was unique in its regional diversity of sex ratio imbalance.
