Sex ratios at birth rose sharply in the South Caucasus countries after 1991, but recent data indicate that this trend is turning. What caused this rise, and what can be done to accelerate its normalization? Traditional kinship systems in the region are similar to those of other settings with...

For years, South Korea presented the puzzling phenomenon of steeply rising sex ratios at birth despite rapid development, including in women's education and formal employment. This paper shows that son preference decreased in response to development, but its manifestation continued until the...

Son preference is known to be found in certain types of cultures, that is patrilineal cultures. But what explains the fact that China, South Korea, and Northwest India manifest such extreme child sex ratios compared with other patrilineal societies? This paper argues that what makes these...

Fertility decline has fueled a sharp increase in the proportion of'missing girls'in China, so an increasing share of males will fail to marry, and will face old age without the support normally provided by wives and children. This paper shows that historically, China has had nearly-universal...

The apparently inexorable rise in the proportion of"missing girls"in much of East and South Asia has attracted much attention amongst researchers and policy-makers. An encouraging trend was suggested by the case of South Korea, where child sex ratios were the highest in Asia but peaked in the...

China has a large deficit of females, and public policies have sought to reduce the son preference that is widely believed to cause this. Recently a study has suggested that up to 75 percent of this deficit is attributable to hepatitis B infection, indicating that immunization programs should...

The authors study the impact of governance and administrative factors on communicable disease prevention in the Indian state of Karnataka using survey data from administrators, frontline workers, and elected local representatives. They identify a number of key constraints to the effective...