Sex Ratio at Birth: An Exploratory Analysis of Its Determinants

Abstract

In this paper an attempt is made to explore the determinations of the sex ratio at birth. The analysis of the available data suggest that there are some ‘good’ causes which could lead to a decline in the sex ratio at birth. The ‘good’ causes are identified to be increase in age at first birth, decline in reproductive burden and improvements in reproductive health care and maternal nutritional status. The results of this paper suggest that it may sometimes be misleading to employ the sex ratio as an index of relative female advantage.