M Das Gupta
Biographic Data
| ID | 12046 |
|---|---|
| NAME | M Das Gupta |
| GIVEN NAMES | M |
| FAMILY NAME | Das Gupta |
| SIGNATURE | DAS GUPTA M |
| AFFILIATIONS | World Bank Group |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1740-5384 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 34 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 864 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 34 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1978 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| H-INDEX | 13 |
What hypotheses can research on son preference in Asia offer for European historical demographic research
Not a bowl of rice, but tender loving care’: From aborting girls to preferring daughters in South Korea
South Korea is the first country to shift from strong son preference to preferring daughters. This paper examines the factors associated with daughter preference, using data from the 2012 Korea General Social Survey, a nationally-representative survey of 1,379 people. The outcome variable was derived from the survey question, 'If you were to have one child, which one would you like to have - son, daughter, or no preference?' Multinomial logistic …
Flies without Borders: Lessons from Chennai on Improving India’s Municipal Public Health Services
India's cities face key challenges to improving public health outcomes. First, unequally distributed public resources create insanitary conditions, especially in slums - threatening everyone's health, as suggested by poor child growth even amongst the wealthiest. Second, devolving services to elected bodies works poorly for highly technical services like public health. Third, services are highly fragmented. This paper examines the differences in …
Is banning sex-selection the best approach for reducing prenatal discrimination
Pressure to ban prenatal sex-selection has grown with rising sex ratios at birth in some countries. Governments feel pressured to act, and bans seem an immediate step they can take. However, such bans have been in place for some time in South Korea, China, and India and the available evidence suggests they are difficult to implement and have limited impact. This is indicated most clearly in the Chinese census data, which throw light on the mixed …
Missing girls’ in China and India: Trends and policy challenges
Child sex ratios plateaued in China between the censuses of 2000 and 2010, a major change from decades of sharp rises. In India they rose by 1.4 per cent during the intercensal period 2001–2011, which is a much slower rate of increase than in previous decades, and reported son preference is falling. In both countries, the largest declines are in regions that had the highest child sex ratios earlier, while some surrounding regions show rises. Stat…
Violent Conflict and Gender Inequality: An Overview
Violent conflict, a pervasive feature of the recent global landscape, has lasting impacts on human capital, and these impacts are seldom gender neutral. Death and destruction alter the structure and dynamics of households, including their demographic profiles and traditional gender roles. To date, attention to the gender impacts of conflict has focused almost exclusively on sexual and gender-based violence. We show that a far wider set of gender …
Implications of China's future bride shortage for the geographical distribution and social protection needs of never-married men
Because sex ratios at birth have risen sharply in China in recent decades, an increasing proportion of men will be unable to find a bride, and will face old age without the support of a wife and children. We project the proportions of never-married men and their geographical distribution in China in the coming decades. Our projections assume that two tendencies in current marriage patterns will persist: that women will continue to migrate to weal…
The Political Economy of Village Sanitation in South India: Capture or Poor Information
Despite efforts to mandate and finance local governments' provision of environmental sanitation services, outcomes remain poor in the villages surveyed in the four South Indian states. The analysis indicates some key issues that appear to hinder improvements in sanitation. Local politicians tend to capture sanitary infrastructure and cleaning services for themselves, while also keeping major village roads reasonably well-served. Their decisions s…
Family Systems, Political Systems and Asia's ‘Missing Girls’: The construction of son preference and its unravelling
China, South Korea and northwest India manifest extreme child sex ratios. This paper argues that this is because their pre-modern political and administrative systems used patrilineages to organise their citizens, generating uniquely rigid patriliny and son preference. It also argues that the advent of the modern state has unravelled the underpinnings of the rigid patriliny, unleashing forces that reduce son preference. Firstly, the modern state …
Gender discrimination in sex selective abortions and its transition in South Korea
Evidence for an Incipient Decline in Numbers of Missing Girls in China and India
The apparently inexorable rise in the proportion of "missing girls" in much of East and South Asia has attracted much attention among researchers and policymakers. An encouraging trend was suggested by the case of South Korea, where child sex ratios (males to females under age 5) were the highest in Asia but peaked in the mid-1990s and normalized thereafter. Using census data, we examine whether similar trends have begun to manifest themselves in…
Developmental changes in food categorisation
The Decline of Son Preference in South Korea: The Roles of Development and Public Policy
For years, sex ratios at birth kept rising in South Korea despite rapid development. We show that this was not an anomaly: underlying son preference fell with development, but the effect of son preference on sex ratios at birth rose until the mid-1990s as a result of improved sex-selection technology. Now South Korea leads Asia with a declining sex ratio at birth. We explore how son preference was affected by development and by public policy. Dec…
"Cultural versus Biological Factors in Explaining Asia's "Missing Women: Response to Oster
Public management and the essential public health functions
Improving Child Nutrition? The Integrated Child Development Services in India
Levels of child malnutrition in India have fallen only slowly during the 1990s, despite significant economic growth and considerable expenditure on the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) programme, of which the major component is supplementary feeding for malnourished children. To begin to unravel this puzzle, this article assesses the programme's placement and its outcomes, using NFHS data from 1992 and 1998. The authors find that prog…
"Explaining Asia's "Missing Women: A New Look at the Data
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…
State–Community Synergies in Community-Driven Development
States can do much to tap community-level energies and resources for development if they seek to interact more synergistically with local communities. The broader spin-off is the creation of a developmental society and polity. Using case studies from Asia and Latin America, we illustrate how: (1) state efforts to bring about land reform, tenancy reform, and expanding non-crop sources of income can broaden the distribution of power in rural commun…
Why is Son preference so persistent in East and South Asia? a cross-country study of China, India and the Republic of Korea
Son preference has persisted in the face of sweeping economic and social changes in the countries studied here. We attribute this persistence to their similar family systems, which generate strong disincentives to raise daughters whether or not their marriages require dowries while valuing adult women's contributions to the household. Urbanisation, female education and employment can only slowly change these incentives without more direct efforts…
Dimensions of Women's Autonomy and the Influence on Maternal Health Care Utilization in a North Indian City
The dimensions of women’s autonomy and their relationship to maternal health care utilization were investigated in a probability sample of 300 women in Varanasi, India. We examined the determinants of women’s autonomy in three areas: control over finances, decision-making power, and freedom of movement. After we control for age, education, household structure, and other factors, women with closer ties to natal kin were more likely to have greater…
Dimensions of women’s autonomy and the influence on maternal health care utilization in a North Indian city
The dimensions of women’s autonomy and their relationship to maternal health care utilization were investigated in a probability sample of 300 women in Varanasi, India. We examined the determinants of women’s autonomy in three areas: control over finances, decision-making power, and freedom of movement. After we control for age, education, household structure, and other factors, women with closer ties to natal kin were more likely to have greater…
Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité: Exploring the role of governance in fertility decline
A secular decline in fertility has taken place across the globe within a short span of human history. The timing and pace of this decline correspond broadly with changes in socio-political institutions in different regions of the world, of Asia, and of India. We hypothesise that this shift in child-bearing behaviour is related to cognitive changes wrought by the replacement of deeply hierarchical socio-political institutions by the more egalitari…
Gender Bias in China, South Korea and India 1920-1990: Effects of War, Famine and Fertility Decline
How has the history of the twentieth century affected the extent of female disadvantage in child survival in China, South Korea and India, and how has this in turn shaped spousal availability and marriage payments? These three countries have similar kinship systems which generate discrimination against girls, and they show the highest levels of excess female child mortality in the world. This article explores how the extent of excess female child…
Lifeboat versus corporate ethic: Social and Demographic Implications of Stem and Joint Families
Fertility and Son Preference in Korea
In Korea, total fertility declined from 6.0 in 1960 to 1.6 in 1990, in spite of a strong preference for male offspring. This paper addresses the notion that son preference hinders fertility decline, and examines the effects of patriarchal relations and modernization on fertility using the 1991 Korea National Fertility and Family Health Survey. It was found that women who have a son are less likely to have another child, and that women with a son …
Selective Discrimination against Female Children in Rural Punjab, India
South Asia is well known as being a region of the world where the normally higher number of females than males in the total population is reversed. Among the Indian states historically Punjab in the Northwest has had the most imbalanced sex ratios. The excessive mortality of females that this reflects is commonly hypothesized to be due to discrimination against females particularly female children relative to males in the allocation of food and h…
The Decline of Son Preference in South Korea: The Roles of Development and Public Policy
For years, sex ratios at birth kept rising in South Korea despite rapid development. We show that this was not an anomaly: underlying son preference fell with development, but the effect of son preference on sex ratios at birth rose until the mid-1990s as a result of improved sex-selection technology. Now South Korea leads Asia with a declining sex ratio at birth. We explore how son preference was affected by development and by public policy. Dec…
Dimensions of women’s autonomy and the influence on maternal health care utilization in a North Indian city
The dimensions of women’s autonomy and their relationship to maternal health care utilization were investigated in a probability sample of 300 women in Varanasi, India. We examined the determinants of women’s autonomy in three areas: control over finances, decision-making power, and freedom of movement. After we control for age, education, household structure, and other factors, women with closer ties to natal kin were more likely to have greater…
Life Course Perspectives on Women's Autonomy and Health Outcomes
Gender inequality leads to negative demographic consequences in many societies. Patterns of household formation and inheritance strongly influence these consequences. Peasant societies of preindustrial northern Europe emphasized the conjugal bond, while intergenerational bonds were weak. The reverse is true in contemporary northern India. As a result, greater potential exists there for marginalizing women. The convergence of low autonomy due to y…
Fertility Decline and Increased Manifestation of Sex Bias in India
This study examines the relationship between fertility decline in India and the evidence of an increase in sex bias. Data were obtained from the 1981 and 1991 Registrar General of India and from Khanna re-study villages in the Punjab (moderate-fertility population) and in Kerala (low-fertility population) in 1991. Total fertility declined by 20% during 1981-91. The number of sons desired by women who were childless declined by only 7.4%. Among th…
Death Clustering, Mothers' Education and the Determinants of Child Mortality in Rural Punjab, India
In this paper the behavioural factors which make for continuing high levels of child mortality in rural Punjab, despite favourable conditions in terms of nutrition, income, women's literacy and health care facilities are examined. A major factor is that inadequate attention has been paid to improved health care practices within the home. Women's autonomy, social class, and mothers' education significantly influence child survival. One of the path…
Evidence for an Incipient Decline in Numbers of Missing Girls in China and India
The apparently inexorable rise in the proportion of "missing girls" in much of East and South Asia has attracted much attention among researchers and policymakers. An encouraging trend was suggested by the case of South Korea, where child sex ratios (males to females under age 5) were the highest in Asia but peaked in the mid-1990s and normalized thereafter. Using census data, we examine whether similar trends have begun to manifest themselves in…
Gender Bias in China, South Korea and India 1920-1990: Effects of War, Famine and Fertility Decline
How has the history of the twentieth century affected the extent of female disadvantage in child survival in China, South Korea and India, and how has this in turn shaped spousal availability and marriage payments? These three countries have similar kinship systems which generate discrimination against girls, and they show the highest levels of excess female child mortality in the world. This article explores how the extent of excess female child…
Lifeboat versus corporate ethic: Social and Demographic Implications of Stem and Joint Families
Fertility and Son Preference in Korea
In Korea, total fertility declined from 6.0 in 1960 to 1.6 in 1990, in spite of a strong preference for male offspring. This paper addresses the notion that son preference hinders fertility decline, and examines the effects of patriarchal relations and modernization on fertility using the 1991 Korea National Fertility and Family Health Survey. It was found that women who have a son are less likely to have another child, and that women with a son …
"Explaining Asia's "Missing Women: A New Look at the Data
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…
Family Systems, Political Systems and Asia's ‘Missing Girls’: The construction of son preference and its unravelling
China, South Korea and northwest India manifest extreme child sex ratios. This paper argues that this is because their pre-modern political and administrative systems used patrilineages to organise their citizens, generating uniquely rigid patriliny and son preference. It also argues that the advent of the modern state has unravelled the underpinnings of the rigid patriliny, unleashing forces that reduce son preference. Firstly, the modern state …
Socio-economic Status and Clustering of Child Deaths in Rural Punjab
This paper explores alternative models to test for clustering and apply them to the 1984 data for Punjab villagers categorized by socioeconomic status education of the mother and the sex of the child and age at death. Interviews were later conducted with mothers and other members of some households with history of multiple child deaths and with matched families with similar socioeconomic status in which there had been no child deaths. The study s…
Implications of China's future bride shortage for the geographical distribution and social protection needs of never-married men
Because sex ratios at birth have risen sharply in China in recent decades, an increasing proportion of men will be unable to find a bride, and will face old age without the support of a wife and children. We project the proportions of never-married men and their geographical distribution in China in the coming decades. Our projections assume that two tendencies in current marriage patterns will persist: that women will continue to migrate to weal…
Gender discrimination in sex selective abortions and its transition in South Korea
Not a bowl of rice, but tender loving care’: From aborting girls to preferring daughters in South Korea
South Korea is the first country to shift from strong son preference to preferring daughters. This paper examines the factors associated with daughter preference, using data from the 2012 Korea General Social Survey, a nationally-representative survey of 1,379 people. The outcome variable was derived from the survey question, 'If you were to have one child, which one would you like to have - son, daughter, or no preference?' Multinomial logistic …
Public management and the essential public health functions
Improving Child Nutrition? The Integrated Child Development Services in India
Levels of child malnutrition in India have fallen only slowly during the 1990s, despite significant economic growth and considerable expenditure on the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) programme, of which the major component is supplementary feeding for malnourished children. To begin to unravel this puzzle, this article assesses the programme's placement and its outcomes, using NFHS data from 1992 and 1998. The authors find that prog…
Missing girls’ in China and India: Trends and policy challenges
Child sex ratios plateaued in China between the censuses of 2000 and 2010, a major change from decades of sharp rises. In India they rose by 1.4 per cent during the intercensal period 2001–2011, which is a much slower rate of increase than in previous decades, and reported son preference is falling. In both countries, the largest declines are in regions that had the highest child sex ratios earlier, while some surrounding regions show rises. Stat…
"Cultural versus Biological Factors in Explaining Asia's "Missing Women: Response to Oster
Fertility Decline in Punjab, India: Parallels with Historical Europe
Two interesting features emerge from this study of fertility behaviour in Punjab. First, it brings out the common features of peasant life and demographic behaviour found in this developing-country setting and in historical Europe. As in much of Europe, marriage was regulated to adjust to the availability of land and other resources. It is interesting to note that the operation of this 'nuptiality valve' was quite consistent with a system of join…
Is banning sex-selection the best approach for reducing prenatal discrimination
Pressure to ban prenatal sex-selection has grown with rising sex ratios at birth in some countries. Governments feel pressured to act, and bans seem an immediate step they can take. However, such bans have been in place for some time in South Korea, China, and India and the available evidence suggests they are difficult to implement and have limited impact. This is indicated most clearly in the Chinese census data, which throw light on the mixed …
What hypotheses can research on son preference in Asia offer for European historical demographic research
Informal Security Mechanisms and Population Retention in Rural India
Production relations and population: Rampur
Informal Security Mechanisms and Population Retention in Rural India
Selective Discrimination against Female Children in Rural Punjab, India
South Asia is well known as being a region of the world where the normally higher number of females than males in the total population is reversed. Among the Indian states historically Punjab in the Northwest has had the most imbalanced sex ratios. The excessive mortality of females that this reflects is commonly hypothesized to be due to discrimination against females particularly female children relative to males in the allocation of food and h…
Death Clustering, Mothers' Education and the Determinants of Child Mortality in Rural Punjab, India
In this paper the behavioural factors which make for continuing high levels of child mortality in rural Punjab, despite favourable conditions in terms of nutrition, income, women's literacy and health care facilities are examined. A major factor is that inadequate attention has been paid to improved health care practices within the home. Women's autonomy, social class, and mothers' education significantly influence child survival. One of the path…
The Demographic Challenge: A Study of Four Large Indian States
Fertility Decline in Punjab, India: Parallels with Historical Europe
Two interesting features emerge from this study of fertility behaviour in Punjab. First, it brings out the common features of peasant life and demographic behaviour found in this developing-country setting and in historical Europe. As in much of Europe, marriage was regulated to adjust to the availability of land and other resources. It is interesting to note that the operation of this 'nuptiality valve' was quite consistent with a system of join…
Life Course Perspectives on Women's Autonomy and Health Outcomes
Gender inequality leads to negative demographic consequences in many societies. Patterns of household formation and inheritance strongly influence these consequences. Peasant societies of preindustrial northern Europe emphasized the conjugal bond, while intergenerational bonds were weak. The reverse is true in contemporary northern India. As a result, greater potential exists there for marginalizing women. The convergence of low autonomy due to y…
Socio-economic Status and Clustering of Child Deaths in Rural Punjab
This paper explores alternative models to test for clustering and apply them to the 1984 data for Punjab villagers categorized by socioeconomic status education of the mother and the sex of the child and age at death. Interviews were later conducted with mothers and other members of some households with history of multiple child deaths and with matched families with similar socioeconomic status in which there had been no child deaths. The study s…
Fertility Decline and Increased Manifestation of Sex Bias in India
This study examines the relationship between fertility decline in India and the evidence of an increase in sex bias. Data were obtained from the 1981 and 1991 Registrar General of India and from Khanna re-study villages in the Punjab (moderate-fertility population) and in Kerala (low-fertility population) in 1991. Total fertility declined by 20% during 1981-91. The number of sons desired by women who were childless declined by only 7.4%. Among th…
Fertility and Son Preference in Korea
In Korea, total fertility declined from 6.0 in 1960 to 1.6 in 1990, in spite of a strong preference for male offspring. This paper addresses the notion that son preference hinders fertility decline, and examines the effects of patriarchal relations and modernization on fertility using the 1991 Korea National Fertility and Family Health Survey. It was found that women who have a son are less likely to have another child, and that women with a son …
Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité: Exploring the role of governance in fertility decline
A secular decline in fertility has taken place across the globe within a short span of human history. The timing and pace of this decline correspond broadly with changes in socio-political institutions in different regions of the world, of Asia, and of India. We hypothesise that this shift in child-bearing behaviour is related to cognitive changes wrought by the replacement of deeply hierarchical socio-political institutions by the more egalitari…
Gender Bias in China, South Korea and India 1920-1990: Effects of War, Famine and Fertility Decline
How has the history of the twentieth century affected the extent of female disadvantage in child survival in China, South Korea and India, and how has this in turn shaped spousal availability and marriage payments? These three countries have similar kinship systems which generate discrimination against girls, and they show the highest levels of excess female child mortality in the world. This article explores how the extent of excess female child…
Lifeboat versus corporate ethic: Social and Demographic Implications of Stem and Joint Families
Dimensions of Women's Autonomy and the Influence on Maternal Health Care Utilization in a North Indian City
The dimensions of women’s autonomy and their relationship to maternal health care utilization were investigated in a probability sample of 300 women in Varanasi, India. We examined the determinants of women’s autonomy in three areas: control over finances, decision-making power, and freedom of movement. After we control for age, education, household structure, and other factors, women with closer ties to natal kin were more likely to have greater…
Dimensions of women’s autonomy and the influence on maternal health care utilization in a North Indian city
The dimensions of women’s autonomy and their relationship to maternal health care utilization were investigated in a probability sample of 300 women in Varanasi, India. We examined the determinants of women’s autonomy in three areas: control over finances, decision-making power, and freedom of movement. After we control for age, education, household structure, and other factors, women with closer ties to natal kin were more likely to have greater…
Why is Son preference so persistent in East and South Asia? a cross-country study of China, India and the Republic of Korea
Son preference has persisted in the face of sweeping economic and social changes in the countries studied here. We attribute this persistence to their similar family systems, which generate strong disincentives to raise daughters whether or not their marriages require dowries while valuing adult women's contributions to the household. Urbanisation, female education and employment can only slowly change these incentives without more direct efforts…
State–Community Synergies in Community-Driven Development
States can do much to tap community-level energies and resources for development if they seek to interact more synergistically with local communities. The broader spin-off is the creation of a developmental society and polity. Using case studies from Asia and Latin America, we illustrate how: (1) state efforts to bring about land reform, tenancy reform, and expanding non-crop sources of income can broaden the distribution of power in rural commun…
Public management and the essential public health functions
Improving Child Nutrition? The Integrated Child Development Services in India
Levels of child malnutrition in India have fallen only slowly during the 1990s, despite significant economic growth and considerable expenditure on the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) programme, of which the major component is supplementary feeding for malnourished children. To begin to unravel this puzzle, this article assesses the programme's placement and its outcomes, using NFHS data from 1992 and 1998. The authors find that prog…
"Explaining Asia's "Missing Women: A New Look at the Data
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…
"Cultural versus Biological Factors in Explaining Asia's "Missing Women: Response to Oster
The Decline of Son Preference in South Korea: The Roles of Development and Public Policy
For years, sex ratios at birth kept rising in South Korea despite rapid development. We show that this was not an anomaly: underlying son preference fell with development, but the effect of son preference on sex ratios at birth rose until the mid-1990s as a result of improved sex-selection technology. Now South Korea leads Asia with a declining sex ratio at birth. We explore how son preference was affected by development and by public policy. Dec…
Developmental changes in food categorisation
Gender discrimination in sex selective abortions and its transition in South Korea
Evidence for an Incipient Decline in Numbers of Missing Girls in China and India
The apparently inexorable rise in the proportion of "missing girls" in much of East and South Asia has attracted much attention among researchers and policymakers. An encouraging trend was suggested by the case of South Korea, where child sex ratios (males to females under age 5) were the highest in Asia but peaked in the mid-1990s and normalized thereafter. Using census data, we examine whether similar trends have begun to manifest themselves in…
Sociology (27 works) · Demography (23 works) · Economics (23 works) · Demographic Trends and Gender Preferences (22 works) · Global Maternal and Child Health (21 works) · Political science (21 works) · Population (16 works) · Economic growth (15 works) · Geography (15 works) · Socioeconomics (12 works)