Traditional son preference is particularly widespread in China, North Korea, India and Pakistan. Female infants and girls and women are prejudiced against when it comes to nutrition and health care. Due to the advances in technology, determining the sex of the foetus in the womb is now possible very early on. Girls are aborted or killed following the birth or set out.

According to demographic calculations, more than 90 million women are "missing" worldwide and although, with the same nutrition and health care, women reach a higher age than men statistically. In South Asia, China and the Near and Middle East, the death rate for girls in comparison to boys of the same respective age is double. On average, for every 100 new-born male babies, some 93 to 96 are born. In 21 countries of the world, there are 95 women to 100 men, above all in the regions of Asia and the Pacific, whereas in countries like Europe, America and the former Soviet Union, a smaller "surplus of women" is present. Due to selective abortions in China, there is a ratio of 88 girls to each 100 boys born.

The background: The traditional preference for sons is deeply rooted in the structure of the society. In China and India sons enjoy a great deal of social prestige. Only men can perform the traditional ancestor cult. Since girls marry into another family, only sons can guarantee for the care of the parents in old age. In societies where families have to pay a dowry when their daughters marry, the practice of discrimination against daughters is far more widespread than in those where the bridegroom has to pay bride-money or where marriage is possible without financial transfer. The killing of female new-born babies as the final solution to the dowry problem is becoming more accepted, particularly in the poorer areas of India.

In China the problem is rooted in the fact that the "one-child family" is being pushed through with force. The one child that the family is allowed to have should, according to the will of the parents, at least be a boy. In the regions where women have more economic power within the family, for instance, because they go to work or work in agriculture or where care of the aged plays a role, sons are of no preference or not so strongly preferred.

What is Being Done Against Traditional Son Preference? In China and India prenatal gender selection and selective abortion are against the law. However laws alone cannot stop this practice.

[Author: Dorette Wesemann, Edited by: Ragnar Müller]

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