Preferences for Boys and Girls in South Korea, China, India and Nepal

Preferences for boys and girls in South Korea, China, India and Nepal The studies of gender bias in several developing countries in Asia have received wide attention over the past two decades. Demographers have noted worrying trends in sex ratio at birth in some of the most populous countries in Asia; South Korea, China, India and Nepal are the most markedly countries. One of the measures of agreement that has been recognized in this phenomenon among these four countries is the traditionally-and-culturally-rooted of son preference. Son preference has several features that illustrate the inclination of the male sex in contrast to the female sex resulting numerous differences in preferences of boys and girls in the societies of these four countries. The features of son preference are based on socio-cultural, socio-economic and institutional factors in South Korea, China, India and Nepal, and consequently, have formed an imbalance in the countries’ sex ratios mainly due to female infants mortality. South Korea was one of the first countries to represent the trend of son preference. This is mainly due to Confucian influence that is acutely embedded in the populace, whereby the eldest son of the most recent male ancestor must lead family rituals. The family â€Å"dies† if there were no sons being born (Westley & Choe 2007). Since pre-industrial South Korea, a person’s access to power, social status and economic opportunities depended heavily on their gender, lineage and their position within that lineage. Chung & Gupta (2007) described that a number of the lineages in South Korea had formed into larger super ordinates lineage or in other words can be referred to as â€Å"clan†, where some joint properties are held and utilized to support ancestor worship rituals and to help lineage members in need. Therefore, it was a primary duty to bear sons to ensure the continuity of a family’s lineage. On another note, son preference played a role in terms of a socio-economic view when the South Korean governments had subsequently reinforced the Confucian traditions in a series of authoritarian policies in order to maintain social and political stability. For example, the Family Law stipulated that family headship must be held by men in the line of the eldest son, inheritance should be through male line, women should be transferred to their husband’s family register upon marriage and children are belonged to the father’s lineage even in the case of divorce (Chung & Gupta 2007). {draw:frame} _Figure 1. 0: Trends in sex ratio at birth and total fertility rate, South Korea, 1980-2003 (Westley & Choe 2007). _ In addition, ultrasound equipment was first mass-produced in the country in the mid-1980s. Therefore, the introduction in technologies to determine the sex of unborn fetuses combined with the widespread of abortion availability made it possible for couples that wanted a son to selectively abort female fetuses. In 1990, as seen in Figure 1. 0, the sex ratio indicated that nearly two boys were born at this birth order for every girl (Westley & Choe 2007) resulting in an increase of sex ratio at its highest peak in South Korea. Similarly as South Korea, son preference became visible in China since it is another Confucian-practiced country. The people held beliefs that a person’s empowerment relies on their lineage and the lineage is solely traced through the male. Therefore, failure to produce a son is considered tantamount to extinction of the family line (Almond et. al 2005). Furthermore, the influence of son preference has been historically and traditionally strong in the country where it can be reflected in this ancient Chinese song quoted; â€Å"When a son is born, Let him sleep on the bed, Clothe him with fine clothes, And give him jade to play†¦ When a daughter is born, Let her sleep on the ground, Wrap her in common wrappings, And give broken tiles to play†¦ â€Å"- Book of Songs (1000-700 B. C. ) (Baculinao 2004). {draw:frame} _Figure 2. 0: Sex ratio of population age 0-4 in China, 1953-2005 (Shuzhuo Li 2007)_ In rural areas of China and among the less educated societies, sons are basically preferred because they are needed to carry out farm work, offer financial support to aging parents, continue the family name and receive family inheritance, and also responsible for ancestor worships. Apart from that, as seen in Figure 3. 0, there has been a sharp rise in sex ratio of children age 0-4 since 1982. This is due to China’s government imposing the â€Å"one-child policy† as one of the forces to fast-track economic modernization. The policy’s main condition is that a family, reliant to their will, is allowed to have one child only. Subsequently, a son is more favoured among the societies due to putting Confucian values into practice (Muller n. d). The government had later on enforced the policy strictly over time where by the regulations included mandatory IUD insertion for all women who had one child and abortion for a woman who had an unauthorized pregnancy. Consequently, out of desperation for a boy, some parents may have killed newborn daughters or undergo an abortion (Graham et. al 1998) and thus, mothers suffer tremendous psychological pressure and health risks while undergoing sex-selected abortions, which affect both their physical and reproductive health (Shuzhuo Li 2007). {draw:frame} Figure 3. 0: Sex ratio of the child and overall population, India, 1951-2001 (Guilmoto 2007)_ In India, son preference is influenced by the strong religious Hindu belief in the country to a certain extent where by a family needs a son to perform last rites in order for salvation to be achieved. In other words, sons are considered as breadwinners as they will look after their parents and continue the family name. In addition, Almond et. al (2005) stated that only sons could light a man’s funeral pyre and perform the traditional ancestor cult. Moreover, some Indian societies practice a tradition whereby daughters have to be married off with a substation dowry and hence, daughters are more often considered as a financial burden resulting the killing of female newborn babies as the final solution to the dowry problem. What is more, it is enlarged and even becoming more accepted, particularly in the poorer areas of India (Almond et. al 2005). Since daughters will be married into another family, therefore only sons can guarantee for the care of the parents in old age, which then resulted a far more widespread practice of discrimination against daughters. Hence, in its most extreme manifestation, the influence of son preference in India can affect on how many girls survive into adulthood and even how girls are born (Westley & Choe 2007). As summarize in Figure 3. 0, from earlier years mortality conditions of female infants had increased from killing of the female infants and sex-discrimination regime started to experience a deep change during the 1970s, since pre-natal sex-determination tests became widely available and often led to selective abortion to female fetus (CHREHPA 2007). draw:frame} Figure 4. 0: Trends in sex ratio at birth under 1 year old in Nepal, 1952/54 – 2001 (CHREHPA 2007). Nepal has been classified as having considerable levels of son preference since the World Fertility Surveys first documented the phenomenon in the 1980s. As seen in Figure 4. 0, there was an inclining trend in sex ratio at birth in 1970s to 1980s. Son preference in Nepal is a little different compared to the other countries concerning the discrimination against daughters are at a distinctive level. Daughters are very much loved in the family, as they are valued for their responsibility in religious festivals as well as for their emotional and household contribution to the family. Hindus in Nepal assign great value to marrying a virgin daughter. Girls marry early and universally in Nepal because of the religious merit bestowed on those who give them in marriage (Karki 1988). Nevertheless, having sons are very highly prized among the Nepalese societies compared to daughters (Leone et. al 2003). Sons are preferred due for old age security, and lineage where by the Hindu code of conduct in Nepal reinforced the transfer of family name through male offspring. Other than that, sons are more desired for their roles in religious rituals, agricultural labor and companionship. However, many Nepalese couples are willing to surpass their ideal family sized to satisfy their desire for sons (Hollander 1997). As a consequence, the son preference has affected the contraceptive behavior in Nepal to the extent that Nepalese rarely begin contraception until the desired numbers of sons are born. However, they began to articulate their realization that large families are contributing to shortage of cultivable land and to the deteriorating fuel wood and water supplies in the hills of Nepal (Karki 1988). Hence, methods of pre-natal sex determination came to view during the 1970s, and according to research from CHREHPA (2007), 10 out of 25 women that had been told the fetus was a girl resorted to sex-selective abortions an increase in Nepal’s maternal mortality rates and sex-ratio imbalance as seen in Figure 4. . As a whole, it can be seen that the rationale behind son preference in South Korea, China, India and Nepal are based on these six features; discriminatory inheritance laws, economic value of sons, continuity of family line, family security and strength, socio-cultural norms and customs and dowry system (Gupta et. al 1998). Enhancement of new medical technologies and sex-selective abortions had somehow supported the idea of son preference in these four countries a nd seem to be a method of having the desired son. Next, it is then perceptibly has created several impacts in socioeconomic and demographic manifestation where by it resulted in higher fertility transition, promotes inequality in social and human development, associated with excess female deaths and poor health of women, lowers quality of life for women, wastes a valuable human resource and perpetuates cycle of poverty and increases income inequality in these four countries (Gupta et. al 1998). Fortunately, the imbalance in sex ratio has spurred some official efforts to shift public opinion in these four countries. Approaches have been made to reduce the sex-ratio imbalances in these countries by making daughters more wanted. Governments and non-governmental organizations work through advocacy, sensitization and awareness-raising programs. In South Korea, after a series of extensive campaigns and programs, sex ratios were once greatly imbalanced, are now returning to normal after women gained status in society through employment opportunities, increased education, and parents with enough money to be financially secure without dependence on their sons (Guilmoto n. . ). South Korea now is the first Asian country to reverse back the trend of rising ratio of sex at birth. China on the other hand, participated by the country’s ambitious â€Å"Care For Girls† program. The program encompasses many dimensions of the sex-ratio predicament. It offers cash and other incentives to families with daughters, scholarships for girls, better housing or loans for targeted families and others. It als o includes several awareness-raising campaigns, as well as repressive measures against illegal abortions and infanticide. In India, a program called Tamil Nadu is created in 2004 that gave monetary rewards to couples that had one or two girls and agreed to be sterilized. The state also created a Cradle babies in which empty cradles were placed in government centers across the states for couples to abandon unwanted female child without killing them. Furthermore, in 2007, the New Delhi municipal government sponsored a program that provide every girl born in a government hospital with a gift deposit of 5000 rupees that accumulated interest and could be cashed once the girls reached the age of 18 (Lederer 2008). Nepal has banned sex-selective abortions in 2002 when it liberalized its own law on abortions. These laws were then strengthened later on in various ways, in order to make them more effective (Guilmoto n. d. ). Although the strategies for reducing son preference and getting back female’s rights are many, these are all rather considered as a short-run implication despite the positive and optimistic outcomes. According to an American demographer who has been closely following China's population program stated that, â€Å"The country may be coming o grips with problem as they country is still in dilemma – emotional and policy dilemma – because the solution to the problem will conflict with other parts of their population strategy to reduce birth rate or some of the measures could perhaps make the problem even worse. The country still has a lot of work to do. There’s no road map yet on how to achieve the goal of normal sex ratio† (Baculinao 2004). There fore, the future trends of the son preference are impossible to predict in the long run. Patriarchal systems are still underneath the attitudes among the societies in these countries. Regardless of how many levels of development in lasting efforts to address sex-selective abortion and female infanticide, it will fully require fundamental changes in cultural norms that promote son preference. References Almond, D, Edlund, L & Milligan K (2005) ‘Son preference and the persistence of culture’. Downloaded from http://www. nber. org/papers/w15391 as at 25 November 2009. Baculinao, E (2004) ‘China grapples with legacy of its ‘missing girls’, MSNBC. Downloaded from http://www. msnbc. msn. com/id/5953508 as at 20 November 2009. Chan, A & Yeoh, B. S. A (2002) ‘Gender, Family and Fertility in Asia: An Introdyuction’. Downloaded from http://www. unescap. org/esid/psis/population/journal/Articles/2002/V17N2A1. pdf . As at 25 November 2009. CHREHPA (2007) ‘ Sex Selection: Pervasiveness and Preparedness in Nepal’. 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