Recent Increase in Sex Ratio at Birth in Viet Nam

Abstract

IntroductionSince the 1980s, sex ratio at birth (male births per 100 female births) has increased in many Asian countries as a result of selective abortions, but to date there has been no such evidence for Viet Nam. Our aim in this paper is to ascertain the situation with respect to sex ratio at birth in Viet Nam over the past five years.Materials and MethodsOriginal data were obtained from sample population surveys in Viet Nam recording annual birth rates since 2000 of about 450,000 women, as well as from two successive birth surveys conducted for the first time in 2007 (1.1 million births). The annual population surveys include specific information on birth history and mothers' characteristics to be used for the analysis of trends and differentials in sex ratio at birth.Results and DiscussionBirth history statistics indicate that the SRB in Viet Nam has recorded a steady growth since 2001. Starting from a level probably close to the biological standard of 105, the SRB reached 108 in 2005 and 112 in 2006, a value significantly above the normal level. An independent confirmation of these results comes from the surveys of births in health facilities which yielded a SRB of 110 in 2006–07. High SRB is linked to various factors such as access to modern health care, number of prenatal visits, level of higher education and employment status, young age, province of residence and prenatal sex determination. These results suggest that prenatal sex determination followed by selective abortion has recently become more common in Viet Nam. This recent trend is a consequence of various factors such as preference for sons, declining fertility, easy access to abortion, economic development as well as the increased availability of ultrasonography facilities.

Assessing the Quality of Data for Analysing the Sex Ratio at Birth in Viet Nam

“…Asian countries, including China (Attané 2006;Poston et al 1997;Zhang 1998), India (Jha et al 2006) and South Korea (Park 1983;Park & Cho 1995), are now facing a shortage of women of reproductive age and the socio-political consequences of a high SRB that has been sustained over recent decades. A similar phenomenon has been recently observed in Viet Nam (Guilmoto et al 2009;United Nations 2009), although these reports and the discussions they generated have relied mainly on data sources which are limited by possible statistical biases. Accurate measurement of SRB from individual datasets requires a detailed assessment of data quality and potential sources of biases before a conclusion can be made on whether such an imbalance exists within a population or is changing over time.…”

“…This finding should not be dismissed. In the absence of a perfect dataset, the comparison has allowed us to identify this cluster of provinces independently of methods used in previous studies (Guilmoto et al 2009). Furthermore, the estimation has been made based on three national datasets, of which data quality has been critically assessed using a standard assessment framework through a comprehensive review, assessment, analysis and mapping process.…”

“…The SRB map shows that these provinces are clustered in the north, and centred in the Red River Delta region, which is geographically located close to Hanoi*the capital city (Guilmoto et al 2009). This cluster has one province, i.e.…”

Gender patterns in Vietnam’s child mortality

“…6 The sex ratio at birth in Vietnam has increased after our data were collected. This happened later than in other Asian countries and is likely to be related to supply factors (prebirth sex assessment, abortion) rather than an increasing preference for sons (see UNFPA (2009) and Guilmoto et al (2009)). Chamarbagwala (2011) argues that a balanced gender composition may be important to parents in India, causing selective survival bias.…”

Next generation sequencing for clinical diagnostics and personalised medicine: implications for the next generation cardiologist

“…There are also potential eugenic connotations as seen following the widespread use of fetal ultrasound in south east Asia where there has been a significant decrease in the female live birth rate 55 56. With the advent of NIPD and the potential for screening panels of many genes, there are obvious concerns of ‘designer babies’ and stringent ethical frameworks for the reporting of results will need to be developed and implemented.…”