Family systems, political systems and Asia's 'missing girls': The construction of son preference and its unravelling

Asian Population Studies

Volumn 6, Issue 2, 2010, Pages 123-152

  Das Gupta, Monica ^a  

^a WORLD BANK   (United States)

Author keywords

Asia; Governance; Kinship; Modernisation; Political economy; Son preference

Indexed keywords

CITIZENSHIP; FAMILY STRUCTURE; GOVERNANCE APPROACH; KINSHIP; MEDIA ROLE; MODERNIZATION; POLITICAL ECONOMY; POLITICAL SYSTEM; SEX RATIO; SON PREFERENCE; STATE ROLE;

CHINA; INDIA; SOUTH KOREA;

EID: 77954835072     PISSN: 17441730     EISSN: 17441749     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/17441730.2010.494437     Document Type: Article

References (104)

1. ANDERSON, B. A. & SILVER, B. D. (1995) 'Ethnic differences in fertility and sex ratios at birth in China: evidence from Xinjiang', Population Studies, vol. 49, no. 2, pp. 211-226.
2. ANDORS, P. (1983) The Unfinished Liberation of Chinese Women, 1949-1980, Indiana University Press & Wheatsheaf Books, Bloomington, IN, & Brighton.
3. ARENSBERG, C. M. & KIMBALL, S. T. (1968) Family and Community in Ireland, 2nd edn, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
4. BANKS, D. J. (1983) Malay Kinship, Institute for the Study of Human Issues, Philadephia, PA.
5. BERTHRONG, J. H. (1998) Transformations of the Confucian Way, Westview Press, Boulder, CO.
6. BHAT, P. N. M. (1996) 'Contours of fertility decline in India: a district-level study based on the 1991 census', in Population Policy and Reproductive Health, ed. K. Srinivasan, Hindustan Publishing Corporation, New Delhi, pp. 96-179.
7. CARSTEN, J. (1995) 'The politics of forgetting: migration, kinship and memory on the periphery of the Southeast Asian State', Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 317-335.
8. CASTERLINE, J. B., CHANG, M. C. & DOMINGO, L. (1993) Which children co-reside with elderly parents? A comparative analysis of the Philippines and Taiwan', paper presented at the annual meeting of the Gerontological Society of America, New Orleans, 19-22 November 1993.
9. CHAKRAVARTY-KAUL, M. (1996) Common Lands and Customary Law: Institutional Change in North India Over the Past Two Centuries, Oxford University Press, New Delhi.
10. CHILDS, G. (2003) 'Polyandry and population growth in a historical Tibetan society', History of the Family, vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 423-444.
11. CHOWDHRY, P. (1994) The Veiled Women: Shifting Gender Equations in Rural Haryana, 1880-1990, Oxford University Press, New Delhi.
12. CHUNG, W. & DAS GUPTA, M. (2007) 'The decline of son preference in South Korea: the roles of development and public policy', Population and Development Review, vol. 33, no. 4, pp. 757-783.
13. CORNWALL, A. (ED.) (2005) Readings in Gender in Africa, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN.
14. CROLL, E. J. (2000) Endangered Daughters: Discrimination and Development in Asia, Routledge, London.
15. DARLING, M. L. (1947) The Punjab Peasant in Prosperity and Debt, 4th edn, Oxford University Press, Bombay.
16. DAS GUPTA, M. (1995) 'Fertility decline in Punjab, India: parallels with historical Europe', Population Studies, vol. 49, no. 3, pp. 481-500.
17. DAS GUPTA, M. (1997) 'Kinship systems and demographic regimes', in Anthropological Demo- graphy: Towards a New Synthesis, eds D. I. Kertzer & T. E. Fricke, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, pp. 36-52.
18. DAS GUPTA, M. (1999) 'Lifeboat versus corporate ethic: social and demographic implications of stem and joint families', Social Science and Medicine, vol. 49, no. 2, pp. 173-184.
19. DAS GUPTA, M. & LI, S. (1999) 'Gender bias in China, South Korea and India 1920-1990: effects of war, famine and fertility decline', Development and Change, vol. 30, no. 3, pp. 619-652.
20. DAS GUPTA, M., CHUNG, W. & LI, S. (2009) 'Evidence for an incipient decline in numbers of missing girls in China and India', Population and Development Review, vol. 35, no. 2, pp. 401-416.
21. DAS GUPTA, M., JIANG, Z., LI, B., XIE, Z., CHUNG, W. & BAE, H.-O. (2003) 'Why is son preference so persistent in East and South Asia? A cross-country study of China, India and the Republic of Korea', Journal of Development Studies, vol. 40, no. 2, pp. 153-187.
22. DAS GUPTA, M., LEE, S., UBEROI, P., WANG, D., WANG, L. & ZHANG, X. (2004) 'State policies and women's agency in China, the Republic of Korea, and India, 1950-2000: lessons from contrasting experiences', in Culture and Public Action: A Cross-disciplinary Dialogue on Development Policy, eds V. Rao & M. Walton, Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA, pp. 234-259.
23. DAVIN, D. (1976) Womenwork: Women and the Party in Revolutionary China, Clarendon Press, Oxford.
24. DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL AFFAIRS, POPULATION DIVISION, UNITED NATIONS (2009) World Population Prospects: The 2008 Revision, United Nations, New York.
25. DEUCHLER, M. (1992) The Confucian Transformation of Korea: A Study of Society and Ideology, Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.
26. DEUCHLER, M. (2003) 'Propagating female virtues in Choson Korea', in Women and Confucian Cultures in Premodern China, Korea, and Japan, eds D. Ko, J. K. Haboush & J. R. Piggott, University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, pp. 142-169.
27. DU, S. (2002) 'Chopsticks Only Work in Pairs': Gender Unity and Gender Equality among the Lahu of Southwest China, Columbia University Press, New York.
28. DUARA, P. (1988) Culture, Power, and the State: Rural North China, 1900-1942, Stanford University Press, Palo Alto, CA.
29. DUBE, L. (1997) Women and Kinship: Comparative Perspectives on Gender in South and South-east Asia, United Nations University Press, Tokyo.
30. DYSON, T. & MOORE, M. (1983) 'On kinship structure, female autonomy, and demographic behavior in India', Population and Development Review, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 35-60.
31. EKEJIUBA, F. A. (2005) 'Down to fundamentals: women-centred hearth-holds in rural West Africa', in Readings in Gender in Africa, ed. A. Cornwall, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN, pp. 41-46.
32. FAURE, D. (2007) Emperor and Ancestor: State and Lineage in South China, Stanford University Press, Palo Alto, CA.
33. FORTESCUE, T. (1911) Punjab Records of the Delhi Residency and Agency, Secretary to Government in Territorial Department 28/4/1820, New Delhi.
34. FOX, R. (1967) Kinship and Marriage: An Anthropological Perspective, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
35. FOX, R. B. (1961) 'Filipino family and kinship', Philippine Quarterly, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 6-9.
36. FRANKENBERG, E., LILLARD, L. & WILLIS, R. J. (2002) 'Patterns of intergenerational transfers in Southeast Asia', Journal of Marriage and Family, vol. 64, no. 3, pp. 627-641.
37. FREEDMAN, M. (1965) Lineage Organization in Southeastern China, Athlone Press, London.
38. GAO, X. (1994) 'China's modernization and changes in the social status of rural women', in Engendering China: Women, Culture, and the State, eds C. K. Gilmartin, G. Hershatter, L. Rofel & T. White, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, pp. 80-100.
39. GATES, H. (1996) China's Motor: A Thousand Years of Petty Capitalism, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY.
40. GEERTZ, H. (1961) The Javanese Family: A Study of Kinship and Socialization, The Free Press of Glencoe, New York.
41. GEERTZ, H. & GEERTZ, C. (1964) 'Teknonymy in Bali: parenthood, age-grading and genealogical amnesia', The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 94, no. 2, pp. 94-108.
42. GEERTZ, H. & GEERTZ, C. (1975) Kinship in Bali, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.
43. GOODKIND, D. (1996) 'On substituting sex preference strategies in East Asia: does prenatal sex selection reduce postnatal discrimination?', Population and Development Review, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 111-125.
44. GUILMOTO, C. Z. (2009) 'The sex ratio transition in Asia', Population and Development Review, vol. 35, no. 3, pp. 519-549.
45. GUILMOTO, C. Z. & ATTANÉ, I. (2007) 'The geography of deteriorating child sex ratio in China and India', in Watering the Neighbour's Garden: The Growing Demographic Female Deficit in Asia, eds I. Attané & C.Z.Guilmoto, CICRED, Paris,pp. 113-135.
46. GUYER, J. I. & PETERS, P. (1987) 'Introduction-conceptualizing the household: issues of theory and policy in Africa', Development and Change, vol. 18, no. 2, pp. 197-214.
47. HILL, K. & UPCHURCH, D. M. (1995) 'Gender differences in child health: evidence from the demographic and health surveys', Population and Development Review, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 127-151.
48. HUA, C. (2001) A Society Without Fathers or Husbands: The Na of China, Zone Books, New York.
49. HUTTON, J. H. (1933) Census of India 1931: With Complete Survey of Tribal Life and Systems (Volume 1), Gian Publishing House, Delhi. Reprinted in 1986.
50. INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR POPULATION SCIENCES (IIPS) & MACRO INTERNATIONAL (2007) National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3), 2005-06, India: Volume 1, IIPS, Mumbai.
51. IKELS, C. (2004) Serving the ancestors, serving the state: filial piety and death ritual in contemporary Guangzhou', in Filial Piety: Practice and Discourse in Contemporary East Asia, ed. C. Ikels, Stanford University Press, Palo Alto, CA, pp. 88-105.
52. INKELES, A. & SMITH, D. H. (1974) Becoming Modern: Individual Change in Six Developing Countries, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
53. ISRAEL, J. I. (2001) Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity, 1650-1750, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
54. JACOBY, H. G. & MANSURI, G. (2007) Watta Satta: Bride Exchange and Women's Welfare in Rural Pakistan, The World Bank Development Research Working Paper No 4126, The World Bank, Washington, DC.
55. JANELLI, R. L. & JANELLI, D. Y. (1982) Ancestor Worship and Korean Society, Stanford University Press, Palo Alto, CA.
56. JANELLI, R. L. & YIM, D. (2004) 'The transformation of filial piety in contemporary South Korea', in Filial Piety: Practice and Discourse in Contemporary East Asia, ed. C. Ikels, Stanford University Press, Palo Alto, CA, pp. 128-152.
57. JENSEN, R. & OSTER, E. (2009) 'The power of TV: cable television and women's status in India', Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 124, no. 3, pp. 1057-1094.
58. KANDIYOTI, D. (1988) 'Bargaining with patriarchy', Gender and Society, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 274-290.
59. KANDIYOTI, D. (1991) 'Islam and patriarchy: a comparative perspective', in Women in Middle Eastern History: Shifting Boundaries in Sex and Gender, eds N. R. Keddie & B. Baron, Yale University Press, CT, New Haven, pp. 23-42.
60. KARVE, I. (1953) Kinship Organization in India, Deccan College Monograph Series, Poona.
61. KASTURI, M. (2002) Embattled Identities: Rajput Lineages and the Colonial State in Nineteenth- century North India, Oxford University Press, New Delhi.
62. KAUR, R. (2004) 'Across-region marriages: poverty, female migration and the sex ratio', Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 39, no. 25, pp. 2595-2603.
63. KEDDIE, N. R. (2006) Women in the Middle East: Past and Present, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
64. KENDALL, L. (1984) 'Wives, lesser wives, and ghosts: supernatural conflict in a Korean village', Asian Folklore Studies, vol. 43, no. 2, pp. 215-225.
65. KIM, J.-S. (1993) Korean Family Law and Its Task, Samyoung-sa, Seoul.
66. KLASEN, S. (1994) Family Composition, Gender Preference, and Parental 'Investment': Excess Female Mortality among Infants and Children during Early German Development, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, mimeographed.
67. KO, D., HABOUSH, J. K. & PIGGOTT, J. R. (2003) Introduction', in Women and Confucian Cultures in Premodern China, Korea, and Japan, eds D. Ko, J. K. Haboush & J. R. Piggott, University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, pp. 1-24.
68. KOLENDA, P. (1987) Regional Differences in Family Structure in India, Rawat Publications, Jaipur.
69. KOO, H. (2002) Engendering civil society: the role of the labor movement', in Korean Society: Civil Society, Democracy and the State, ed. C. K. Armstrong, Routledge, London, pp. 109-131.
70. LEE, K.-G. (2003) Comparative Studies on Korean Family, Lineage, and Culture, Academia Koreana of Keimyung University, Deigu.
71. LARSEN, U., CHUNG, W. & DAS GUPTA, M. (1998) 'Fertility and son preference in Korea', Population Studies, vol. 52, no. 3, pp. 317-325.
72. LEVINE, N. E. (1988) The Dynamics of Polyandry: Kinship, Domesticity, and Population on the Tibetan Border, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.
73. LIMANONDA, B. (1995) 'Families in Thailand: beliefs and realities', Journal of Comparative Family Studies, vol. 26, no. 1, pp. 67-82.
74. MCCLELLAND, D. C. (1961) The Achieving Society, D. van Nostrand, Princeton, NJ.
75. MOGHADAM, V. A. (2003) Modernizing Women: Gender and Social Change in the Middle East, Lynne Rienner, Boulder, CO.
76. NAKANE, C. (1967) Kinship and Economic Organization in Rural Japan, Athlone Press, London.
77. NAQVI, F. (2006) Images and Icons: Harnessing the Power of Mass Media to Promote Gender Equality and Reduce Practices of Sex Selection, BBC World Service Trust India, New Delhi.
78. NONGBRI, T. (1993) 'Gender and the Khasi family structure', in Family, Kinship, and Marriage in India, ed. P. Uberoi, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, pp. 176-186.
79. ONG, A. (1990) 'State versus Islam: Malay families, women's bodies, and the body politic in Malaysia', American Ethnologist, vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 258-276.
80. PARASHAR, A. (1992) Women and Family Law Reform in India: Uniform Civil Code and Gender Equality, Sage Publications, New Delhi.
81. PIERSON, C. (1996) The Modern State, Routledge, London.
82. PRADHAN, M. C. (1966) The Political System of the Jats of Northern India, Oxford University Press, Bombay.
83. RETHERFORD, R. D. & ROY, T. K. (2003) Factors Affecting Sex-selective Abortion in India and 17 Major States, National Family Health Survey Subject Report No. 21, International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai.
84. RUDELSON, J. J. (1997) Oasis Identities: Uyghur Nationalism along China's Silk Road, Columbia University Press, New York.
85. SCHWARCZ, V. (1986) The Chinese Enlightenment: Intellectuals and the Legacy of the May Fourth Movement of 1919, University of California Press, Berkeley, CA.
86. SHU, P. (2004) Lineage making in southern China since the 1980s', paper presented at the biennial conference of the Asian Studies Association of Australia, Canberra, 29 June 2 July 2004.
87. SIEDER, R. & MITTERAUER, M. (1983) 'The reconstruction of the family life course: theoretical problems and empirical results', in Family Forms in Historic Europe, eds R. Wall, J. Robin & P. Laslett, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 309-346.
88. SIU, H. F. (1989) 'Recycling rituals: politics and popular culture in contemporary rural China', in Unofficial China: Popular Culture and Thought in the People's Republic, eds P. Link, R. Madsen & P. G. Pickowicz, Westview Press, Boulder, CO, pp. 121-137.
89. SIU, H. F. & FAURE, D. (1995) 'Introduction', in Down to Earth: The Territorial Bond in South China, eds D. Faure & H. F. Siu, Stanford University Press, Palo Alto, CA, pp. 1-19.
90. SIU, H. F. & LIU, Z. (2006) 'Lineage, market, pirate, and dan: ethnicity in the Pearl River Delta of South China', in Empire at the Margins: Culture, Ethnicity, and Frontier in Early Modern China, eds P. K. Crossley, H. F. Siu & D. S. Sutton, University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, pp. 285-309.
91. SMITH, R. J. (1974) Ancestor Worship in Contemporary Japan, Stanford University Press, Palo Alto, CA.
92. SORENSEN, C. & KIM, S.-C. (2004) 'Filial piety in contemporary urban Southeast Korea: practices and discourses', in Filial Piety: Practice and Discourse in Contemporary East Asia, ed. C. Ikels, Stanford University Press, Palo Alto, CA, pp. 153-181.
93. TRAUTMANN, T. R. (1981) Dravidian Kinship, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
94. UNITED NATIONS, DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL AFFAIRS, POPULATION DIVISION (2009) World Population Prospects: The 2008 Revision, United Nations, New York (advanced Excel tables).
95. UNITED NATIONS SECRETARIAT (1998) Too Young to Die: Genes or Gender?, United Nations, New York.
96. UNITED STATES (1990) A Country Study: South Korea, United States Library of Congress, [Online] Available at: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/krtoc.html#kr0020 (accessed 22 December 2009).
97. VISARIA, L. (2007) 'Sex-selective abortion in Gujarat and Haryana: some empirical evidence', in Abortion in India: Ground Realities, eds L. Visaria & V. Ramachandran, Routledge, New Delhi, pp. 133-167.
98. WALDRON, I. (2005) 'Gender differences in mortality-causes and variation in different societies', in The Sociology of Health and Illness: Critical Perspectives, ed. P. Conrad, Worth Publishers, New York, pp. 38-55.
99. WHANG, I.-J. (1981) Management of Rural Change in Korea: The Saemaul Undong, Seoul National University Press, Seoul.
100. WILLIAMSON, N. E. (1976) Sons or Daughters: A Cross-cultural Survey of Parental Preferences, Sage Publications, Beverley Hills, CA.
101. WOLF, A. P. (1974) 'Gods, ghosts, and ancestors', in Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society, ed. A. P. Wolf, Stanford University Press, Palo Alto, CA, pp. 131-182.
102. WOLF, A. P. (2005) 'Europe and China: two kinds of patriarchy', in Marriage and the Family in Eurasia: Perspectives on the Hajnal Hypothesis, eds T. Engelen & A. P. Wolf, Aksant Academic Publishers, Amsterdam, pp. 215-238.
103. YOUNT, K. M. (2001) 'Excess mortality of girls in the Middle East in the 1970s and 1980s: patterns, correlates and gaps in research', Population Studies, vol. 55, no. 3, pp. 291-308.
104. ZHANG, H. (2004) "Living alone" and the rural elderly: strategy and agency in post-Mao rural China', in Filial Piety: Practice and Discourse in Contemporary East Asia, ed. C. Ikels, Stanford University Press, Palo Alto, CA, pp. 63-87.