India Still Prefers Sons To Daughters, Govt Data Gives Proof

It is still true that son preference has persisted in the face of sweeping economic and social changes in the countries studied here. Social sciences attribute this persistence to their similar family systems. We raise daughters – whether or not their marriages require dowries – and stop valuing adult women’s contributions to the household.

Female education and employment can only slowly change these incentives without more direct efforts by the state. Civil society must also ensure that in a family setup, daughters and sons can be perceived as being equally valuable. A lot can be done to accelerate this process through social movements, legislation and the mass media.

Son Preference In India

Monica Das Gupta is a corresponding author at Development Research Group, The World Bank, USA. She establishes how most societies show some degree of preference for sons, in The Journal of Development Studies, Vol.40, No.2, December 2003, a Frank Class, London publication. The journal examines the strong parallels between China, India, and South Korea in their patterns of discrimination against female children. According to its research, the juvenile sex ratio (ratio of boys to girls) has been rising steadily since the 1960s in all three countries. This shows that the manifestation of son preference is rising. Fertility has declined and sex-selection technology has improved. In all the three countries, juvenile sex ratios have risen in recent decades.

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Reports by the BBC state that nearly 80% of families surveyed said they wanted at least one son in their lifetime, according to the latest figures from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5), which is the most comprehensive household survey of Indian society by the government.

Although according to the NFHS-5 survey between 2019 and 2021, we see improvement in the sex ratio from previous years with more “females” than males in India, the historical preference for boys remains. Over 15% people - 16% men and 14% women - told the surveyors that they wanted more sons than daughters. It may be an improvement from 2015-16 (NFHS-4) when 18.5% women and 19% men wanted more sons. But many couples continue to keep having daughters in the hope of having a boy. The improvement is barely impressive.

Women are still not valued in the household: they have value as vessels of procreation and for their labour contribution to the house. With the system being rigidly formal and parents needing the support of eldest sons as always, it is unavoidable that the eldest sons continue to exercise autonomy and the daughters are married off.

Despite the socio-economic transformation of the country, and residential mobility as sons go to work in other cities, common arguments say that most Indian parents prefer sons. The reason is that a son’s net worth is higher than a daughter’s. The discussion about son-preference has focused especially on the high costs of dowry. Parents also note the harsh realities of poverty, and the need for old age support and consider the costs of their daughters’ weddings to be a major drain on the household resources.

Urban life may differ enormously from that of rural areas, in reducing the centrality of sons in their parents’ lives. Whether urban parents derive support from a child often depends more on who lives in the same city and the nature of their relationship, than on the sex of the child. This is critical to making daughters less of a drain and more of an asset as compared with sons.

But on the other hand, sons-in-law also interact with a woman’s parents and can sometimes be called upon for assistance. Moreover, sons’ employment may take them to a city other than that of their parents. So, discrimination remains the same. While much can be done to reduce son preference through social movements, legislation, and the mass media, the system is never revised. As a society we must question what is stopping us from caring for a girl child and why can't we do away from with those hurdles.

Views expressed by the author are their own.