Does Hepatitis B Infection or Son Preference Explain the Bulk of Gender Imbalance in China? A Review of the Evidence

Das Gupta, Monica

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: BABIES;    BIRTH ORDER;    BIRTH ORDERS;    BIRTHS;    CHANCES OF SURVIVAL;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-4502
RP-ID  :  WPS4502

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

China has a large deficit of females,and public policies have sought to reduce the son preferencethat is widely believed to cause this.Recently a study hassuggested that up to 75 percent of this deficit isattributable to hepatitis B infection, indicating thatimmunization programs should form the first plank of policyinterventions.However, a large medical dataset from Taiwan(China) shows that hepatitis B infection raises women'sprobability of having a son by only 0.25 percent.Anddemographic data from China show that the only group ofwomen who have elevated probabilities of bearing a son arethose who have already borne daughters. This pattern makesit difficult to see how any biological factor can explain alarge part of the imbalance in China's sex ratios atbirth -- unless it can be shown that it somehow selectivelyaffects those who have borne girls, or causes them to firstbear girls and then boys. The Taiwanese data suggest thatthis is not the case with hepatitis B, since its impact isunaffected by the sex composition of previous births. Thedata support the cultural, rather than the biological,explanation for the "missing women."