Sex ratio is perhaps one of the most important sociodemographic indices which reflect the socio-economic and cultural ethos of a country, more so with reference to the status of its women.

IT was once thought that fertility below a level could not be achieved without changes in the material conditions of the people.

The high female infant mortality rates (Miller, 1985), the practice of female infanticide (Krishnaswamy, 1988), the neglect of female children with regard to access to health services, nutrition (Sen and Sengupta 1983) and education (Mankekar, 1985), and the sexual abuse of girls (Bhalerao, 1985)

In this report, we propose new measures of wanted and unwanted fertility based on actual and wanted parity progression ratios, and we apply these procedures to NFHS data for eight states in India.

On the World Population Day this year, there were two new features which are welcome: the first is the concern for environment in the context of population growth; and the second is the candid admission by the Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare that we must get rid of the tyranny of fami

It is now common practice to infer the social status of women from their demographic characteristics. Yet it is not so easy to read through demographic progress, in terms of declines in mortality and fertility, to make unambiguous judgments about trends in women's social standing.

We live in an era of paradoxes and contradictions - the reality was never so multifaceted, the issues never so complex. Everything around us seems to be melting and unfortunately the new forms acquired by the congealing of the molten mass leaves us little to rejoice at.

A number of recent studies [A] [D] have documented evidence to show that couples have a decided preference for a particular sex combination of children. For example, in many South Asian countries, including India, there is a strong preference for sons over daughters.

Modem means of fertility control have made inroads into Mogra in recent times. Since these means were introduced mainly under the national Family Planning Programme (FPP), this chapter focuses on people's response to it. How did FPP find its way into the village? What do people think about it?