Neonatal discrimination and excess female mortality in childhood in Spain in the first half of the twentieth century

Echávarri, Rebeca

doi:10.1007/s11698-021-00225-6

Cited by 7 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…Postnatal discrimination. Infant mortality (death before the first birthday) is the most widely used time interval for measuring early mortality (Bhalotra, 2010;Bhalotra et al, 2020;Chaudhuri, 2015;Echavarri and Husillos, 2016), complemented by child mortality (death between the first and fifth years of life) and the combination of the two outcomes, namely under-five mortality (Anukriti et al, 2022;Echavarri, 2022;Hu and Schlosser, 2015;Sawyer, 2012). Specifically, this paper uses three postnatal-discrimination measures: a dummy that takes a value one if the child dies before the age of 12 months (infant mortality), between 12 and 60 months (child mortality) or before 60 months (under-five mortality).…”

Section: Measurement and Definition Of Key Variablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Discrimination at birth has no effect on overall girls' survival (Hu and Schlosser, 2015), possibly because it does not help girls born in families with firstborn boys (Anukriti et al, 2022), and might even hurt them in some scenarios (Echavarri, 2022;Kashyap, 2019). , 2020).…”

Section: Robustness To Measurement Of Srbmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, in some specific scenarios, explicit discrimination at birth might reinforce that exercised in infancy and childhood. Recent studies point how the observed relationship between prenatal and postnatal discrimination in a region would be moderated by the institutions in that social setting (Echavarri, 2022;Kashyap, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Rohlfs et al (2010) find that in fire-horse years (Japanese calendar), which have traditionally been thought to produce girls less adapted to social norms, son preference increases, as do strategies to avoid female births. Economic shocks such as increases in the price of gold, affecting dowry costs (Bhalotra et al, 2020), or in the price of tea, involving decreases in gender wage gaps (Qian, 2008), or the outbreak of war, increasing the cost of child rearing (Echavarri, 2022) strongly compromise the birth and survival of girls.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, the same author also report the opposite correlation for India in the same period. Recent studies on macro dynamics also find geographical diversity in the nature of the relationship between prenatal and postnatal discrimination (Echavarri, 2022;Kashyap, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Missing female births and girls in India

Echávarri

2022

Preprint

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A significant portion of the mortality affecting girls could be avoided. They are part of the phenomenon known as missing women. A growing body of literature examines whether the rise of sex-selective abortions leads to a decrease in the number of missing girls, by decreasing postnatal discrimination. The evidence is mixed, and theoretical analysis points to social norms as a mechanism that would limit the possible substitution effects. This paper contributes to the literature by identifying the effects of societal-level sex-selection at birth on household-level postnatal discrimination. To that end, the paper merges information from the latest Indian National Family Health Survey (2016 − 2017) and the most recent census (2011). Excess female mortality in childhood is found to be greater in rural districts and in years in which there is a higher male to female sex ratio at birth. This effect is driven by the mortality outcomes of higher birth order girls who are more likely to belong to families that did not use selective abortions as a control for family sex composition. The paper enriches the discussion on why short-run increases in prenatal discrimination do not always help and may even increase the number of missing young girls.JEL B54, J13, J16

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Section: Measurement and Definition Of Key Variablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Robustness To Measurement Of Srbmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Missing female births and girls in India

Echávarri

2022

Preprint

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Economic development, female wages and missing female births in Spain, 1900–1930

Echávarri

Tapia

2023

Cliometrica

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Focusing on Spain between 1900 and 1930, a period characterised by significant structural transformations and rapid economic growth, this article shows that the sex ratio at birth (SRB) was abnormally high, at least until the 1920s. Apart from questioning whether female under-registration and different mortality environments alone can explain the results reported here, our analysis of regional information indicates that SRBs were higher in provinces where the economic structure was dominated by agriculture and manufacturing (relative to the service sector). In addition, exploiting the annual variation in low-skilled wages at the province level makes it possible to distinguish between the roles played by under-registration and outright neglect: while higher wages could increase the opportunity cost of registering a female birth (and therefore result in higher SRBs), they could also reduce the pressure to neglect female babies (and therefore result in lower SRBs). We find evidence of both effects (income and opportunity cost) of wages on SRBs between 1914 and 1920 in Spain, a period in which WWI arguably subjected the Spanish economy to an exogenous demand shock. These two effects, however, imply very different discriminatory practices. In fact, on average, the income effect was larger than the effect arising from the opportunity cost, which supports the idea that female neglect around birth was more prevalent than previously assumed during the early twentieth century in Spain. As expected, the relationship between wages and the SRB vanished during the 1920s, along with the unbalanced SRB. These results stress that gender discrimination around birth does not necessarily disappear with economic growth unless this process is accompanied by expanded labour opportunities for women.

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What can Europe’s history of gender bias tell us about Asia’s contemporary experience?

Guilmoto

2022

The History of the Family

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Neonatal discrimination and excess female mortality in childhood in Spain in the first half of the twentieth century

Cited by 7 publications

References 49 publications

Missing female births and girls in India

Missing female births and girls in India

Economic development, female wages and missing female births in Spain, 1900–1930

What can Europe’s history of gender bias tell us about Asia’s contemporary experience?

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