Comments on: Sex Ratio Bias in India

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 08:41:03 +0000

Nikhil and S: What you say may well be true. Virtually all of my reading on the subject is not about current India. That does not meat that the system of the last centuries is not relevant and even causative.However, I should add that the earlier interpretations (by Dickeman, etc.) are based on extensive carefully collected data. I’m not willing to shift my perspective based on opinions (with all due respect) of this issue any more than I’m willing to decide that, say, Ethonal from corn is inefficient because Pat Buchanan screamed this ‘fact’ at Brian Unger on the TV yesterday afternoon…Sorry if I’m being obtuse … What I’m saying is that I’ve got a pile of academic papers, books, theses, and talks at conferences on one hand and some guy named “s” in a comment on the other …. I need more. The idea that things are different in some respect now does not surprise me at all and seems likely but I need more.So what is the key paper (or two) updating us on the current situation in India regarding caste from a behavioral biological point of view (or even just a really good description)?

By: S

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 04:02:06 +0000

Yes, you may be right that ‘marrying up’ was part of what fueled the dowry problem, but Nikhil is right that now, people marry within their caste as much as possible, and it has been that way for a while. The caste system has become an easy punching bag for the culture’s problems, when it is just one factor out of many. The way you present the problem (or rather, its analysis) in the post is misleading and way too simplistic.

By: Ian

Ian — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 09:19:37 +0000

Wouldn’t that actually be a gender ratio bias? ;)I’m having fun trying to imagine what a sex ratio bias might actually be. I can see a sex ration bias, but a sex ratio? I think I need to partner up with someone(s) to investigate….

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 09:02:40 +0000

Nikhil, I’m sure the degree of hypergyny varies from area to area and time to time, but it does not take a very large percentage of hypergynous marriages to very significantly affect the ‘value’ of each gender.

By: Nikhil

Nikhil — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 08:38:57 +0000

What’s this marrying “up” in caste that you speak of? Most people marry “in” caste.I think that the only problem is a society stuck in the middle ages due to lack of social education and reforms. This problem is especially bad in northern India. And don’t think that schooling changes that very much. In fact the more educated the groom, more dowry the bride’s parents end up paying. The only hope here is that when the ratio dips sufficiently, out of desperation these people will have to stop taking dowry (simply due to the demand and supply disparity) and that will help bring the ratio back up again.This has nothing to do with abortion rights. If you think about it, these abortions have been forced upon them by the society which has no respect for women, although all Indians seem to glorify the place of women in their culture (I am an Indian too, but suffer from no such delusions).If these ratios are better in certain states, it is due to either a matriarch system (kerala) or due to better social reforms at least in certain castes and classes.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 07:23:35 +0000

The real solution is to lower the class barriers, but of course the people benefiting from the status quo have zero incentive to do soThe Indian upper castes will stare working on that the day after the American “middle class” (the political euphemism for “the wealthy” ceases to be the primary fetish of the powerful here.I’m not disagreeing with your fundamental point. But just remember that, for instance, suffering of women and children because of power relationships and greed (which fuel the caste system AND the american system) is not the primary interest of society. It could be that India is worse. But first you have to see if it really is worse or if it is just different. And, if we are comparing countries, India does not practice the caste system everywhere, just like the US does not have Bayou or Appalachian and Urban Inner City and Reservation poverty everywhere.Well, OK, we do, but whatever …What I really wanted to say is this: The participants in this system in India, those who keep it going, are generally as politically aware and educated as the Americans who keep our system going, I think. Modern Indian society is not my specialty. I know more about the traditional life ways there. And it is a big and complex place.I’m waiting, apparently senselessly, for someone from India to step in here.

By: Bob

Bob — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 01:18:29 +0000

Yet nobody (in India?) sees that the problem is actually in the class system and specifically in the medieval practice of dowry. The cultural relativist my rise up and call me some sort of pre-post-modern throwback for applying the modern Western view of dowry and arranged marriage and a strict class system as quaint vestiges of the feudal system, right up there with papal indulgences, indentured servitude, and the humour theory of disease.If one’s class (and thereby economic) system allows advancement primarily due to marriage rather than achievement, you’ll end up with this sort of dumb. The real solution is to lower the class barriers, but of course the people benefiting from the status quo have zero incentive to do so and those with the incentive have no power without bloodshed, and probably even then.Maybe the solution lies in expanding the H1-B program. If you can’t find a wife locally, take an Oracle certification test, move to the US, and find a wife there. The folks back home may eventually catch a clue, but you’ll have a wife and a job and way less likelihood of being whacked by a Sikh or Tamil terrorist or a Pakistani nuke, though nothing here probably compares to the nan back home…Great. Now I’m dying for some lamb saagwala. Dammit.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:33:21 +0000

This is complex. If we sat down in a coffee shop for three hours I would have you, Joel and phisrow, much more on the side of the parents. The only thing they can do is to bias towards boys, in the same way that the only thing parents could do in America and Britian in 1942 was to send their boys off to war. Sort of.Abortions are a far sight better than the two obvious alternatives: Infanticide at or near birth, and slow starvation.These “extra” men will marry. They will not be extras.What SHOULD happen is that the lower castes that produce the women should produce more girls then boys. THEY are the ones doing this wrong, because they don’t bias investment towards girls. They produce girls, marry them up, and then have surplus boys.And the boys have a use. There is in at least one region where this occurs an expression that translates roughly into “sons are guns”I do agree that this social arrangement is problematic. What is important to realize is that all social arrangements are problematic.But I am not an unabashed cultural relativist. Some are more problematic than others. But right now as an American I have a hard time getting up the balls to throw too many stones. Not just now.But yes, your points are well taken and the whole thing is kinda creepy if you are not used to it.

By: Joel

Joel — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:19:54 +0000

I thought I heard this story on the radio and if I remember correctly, boys outnumber the girls by more than 2 to 1. What are these people thinking?The way I see it, abortion in this context is nothing more than femicide and not an acceptable reason for abortion.

By: phisrow

phisrow — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 23:02:40 +0000

I find this issue a little tricky because I am in favor of abortion rights, so I really can’t go down the “Sorry, abortion only for reasons I deem worthy” road.That said, though, I find the phenomenon pretty creepy. Not only does it suggest some pretty grim things about life for those females who aren’t aborted, it is setting the society up for some very unpleasant phenomena.Having a large surplus of frustrated young males with essentially no chance of “getting married and settling down” is just very unlikely to go well. That is exactly the demographic that is likely to take up antisocial hobbies like violence, crime, and politics(often politics consisting of a mixture of the first two). Even if nothing visibly dramatic occurs, you’ll be looking at an uptick in prostitution, human trafficking, STDs, and related issues.I’m not at all sure that it will come to pass; but I can only hope that, perhaps, a significant shortage of women will improve the culture’s regard for them.