Every year, as millions of women marry, they dream of starting a family, of having their homes filled with tiny cries and the happy laughter of gurgling babies. In India however, pregnancy is too often followed by the question of
whether the unborn child is a girl or a boy.

With the increase in the urbanization and industrialization, the concept of family in India, which once was to create and maintain a common culture among the members of the family, is undergoing changes.

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)

The impact of the family planning (FP) programme over the years is showing varying impacts on fertility across regions and population groups in India.

In 1978, the Bangladesh family planning program launched a national program of outreach services that continues to the present. Young married women were hired and trained to visit women in their homes, offer contraceptive services, provide information, and support sustained use over time.

Inter-spouse communication, though not a new dimension of fertility and family planning research, has remained much less explored in the Indian context than any other correlate of contraceptive use and current fertility.

High family size desire and low acceptance of family planning constitute, the two main factors underlying the high fertility of the Indian population. Excessive loss of children in early childhood in rural areas is considered to be contributory to both of the above factors.

How does one analytically locate the social phenomenon manifested in India during the last few years since the advent of sex-selection technology in the mid- 70s?

The search for explanations for the high rate of fertility in India has led many to theorize the link between poverty and fertility. Several micro-studies have affirmed the hypothesis of positive association between poverty and fertility.