Tks to reader Steve Wiersma for these three items on China's one child policy.

 

Bulte, E., N. Heerink, et al. (2011). "China's One-Child Policy and 'the Mystery of Missing Women': Ethnic Minorities and Male-Biased Sex Ratios." Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics 73(1): 21-39.

Recent estimates suggest that as many as 40 million women are 'missing' in China. We exploit a special provision in the Chinese one-child policy (OCP; allowing for preferential treatment of ethnic minority groups) to revisit the mystery of these missing women, and in particular to explore the contribution of China's OCP in distorting sex ratios. Our results imply that preference for boys is the main driver of the gender gap, and that the OCP is responsible for about half of it. This is true even before ultrasound technologies for prenatal gender determination were available. Not surprisingly, interaction between the OCP and ultrasound technologies has contributed to the gender gap.

Das Gupta, M. (2005). "Explaining Asia's,"missing women": A new look at the data." Population and Development Review 31(3): 529-+.

The fact that millions of females are "missing" in East Asia and South Asia has been attributed to cultural factors that support strong son preference in these countries. A widely disseminated paper by Emily Oster argues that a large part of this phenomenon can be attributed to excessively masculine sex ratios at birth resulting from maternal infection with hepatitis B. If her thesis is true, current policies to address this problem would need to be reframed to include biological factors in addition to cultural factors. The data show, however, that whether or not females "go missing" is determined by the existing sex composition of the family into which they are conceived. Girls with no older sisters have similar chances of survival as boys. However, girls conceived in families that already have a daughter experience steeply higher probabilities of being aborted or of dying in early childhood. This indicates that cultural factors still provide the overwhelming explanation for the "missing" females.

Das Gupta, M. (2006). "Cultural versus biological factors in explaining Asia's "missing women": Response to Oster." Population and Development Review 32(2): 328-332.

Hamoudi, A. (2010). "Exploring the Causal Machinery behind Sex Ratios at Birth: Does Hepatitis B Play a Role?" Economic Development and Cultural Change 59(1): 1-21.

Lin, M. J. and M. C. Luoh (2008). "Can Hepatitis B Mothers Account for the Number of Missing Women? Evidence from Three Million Newborns in Taiwan." American Economic Review 98(5): 2259-2273.

Oster, E. (2006). "On explaining Asia's "missing women": Comment on Das Gupta." Population and Development Review 32(2): 323-327.

Oster, E., G. Chen, et al. (2010). "Hepatitis B does not explain male-biased sex ratios in China." Economics Letters 107(2): 142-144.

Oster (2005) argued that parents with Hepatitis B (HBV) have more sons, which explained Asia's "missing women". Lin and Luoh (2008) show no relationship between gender and mother's HBV. We test for a relationship between paternal HBV and son share and find none. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

 

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