The wellbeing implications of a change in the sex-ratio of a population

It is often the case with socio-economic, or development-related, indicators that these are explicitly in the nature of ‘wellbeing’ or ‘illbeing’ indicators, such that increases in their values are routinely interpreted as reflecting ‘improvements’ or ‘deteriorations’, as the case may be. The sex-ratio of a population is one such indicator: an over-time reduction in the value of this statistic is generally regarded as pointing to a worsening in the relative wellbeing of women. This paper argues that summary real-valued socio-economic measures are largely in the nature of end-state descriptions, and not always completely reliable guides to the processes underlying their realization. This is also true for the sex-ratio measure. The paper points to the utility of decomposing a given change in the sex-ratio of a population into changes in its constituent and determining factors. In particular, the sex-ratio can be seen to be determined by the prior history of sex-ratios at birth and the prior history of the relative survival advantage of females. The magnitude and direction of changes in these determining factors are pointers to the processes that have mediated the change in the aggregate sex-ratio, and therefore pointers to whether the sex-ratio change—independently of the direction of change—may be interpreted in developmentally favourable or unfavourable terms. The issues underlying these considerations are illustrated through the use of relevant demographic data for India.