Read of the week: Better sex in India?
sex ratio, that is
India’s sex ratio at birth had been growing wider since the 1970s, when the introduction of prenatal testing allowed parents to act on their cultural norm of son preference and abort female infants in higher numbers. Now, it’s on the decline and the Pew Research Center has a detailed report on the shifts.
General improvements in wealth and education have contributed, plus specific policies to ban prenatal sex tests and targeted campaigns to promote the value of girls. The ratio is now about 108 boys born for every 100 girls (normal is 103-105 boys per 100 girls). The ratio had been most egregious among Sikhs, with ratios among Muslims and Christians normal or close to it. The linked Pew report is really useful because it goes through the influence of caste, region, and urbanicity, in addition to religion. It’s long, but a good read.
While we often think of the skewed sex ratio problem as an Asian one (India and China get the most press), as I say in my recent book (hardback on sale for $18!!), the problem has spread to southeastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. In 2020, the list of states with SRBs of 107 or higher included Serbia, Estonia, Suriname, Papua New Guinea, Cyprus, Samoa, and Kazakhstan.
Other reads that caught my eye this week (which is honestly not much, and I’m in a real dry spell with books—send help via comments):
Another idea for fixing the broken US immigration system: more work visas. BTW, are there really a lot of people who advocate for open borders? I don’t know these people. Seems like most want reform, but don’t want to pay the political price for it.
The far-right Sweden Democrats just had a big victory by employing a “strategy of combining anti-immigrant sentiment with welfare nativism,” which The Guardian says is helping them gain power across Europe in the (continued) wake of the 2015/16 migrant crisis.
Are you on Goodreads? If you enjoy this newsletter you would be doing me a real solid by giving 8 Billion and Counting a quick 5-star rating. Thank you! And don’t forget to…
My biggest victory these last few weeks was not anything I wrote, but rather that I finally got a Room Rater! Yes, I chop my pillows and I had taught my sons to fluff and chop all the house pillows by the time they were 5. I’m fine, really.
