While it’s well known that female foeticide is widely practised in India, the general perception is that the practice prevails due to poverty and the lack to education.

There have been a number of studies in recent years which have disproved this. In fact, they’ve shown that some of the most lopsided sex ratios in India exist in some of the richest neighbourhoods such as GK in New Delhi and in states such as Punjab which are certainly not amongst the poorest states in the country.

A new study by the Harvard School of Public Health lead by S V Subramanian reported by the Statesman on December 15, 2008 confirms this. It found that the odds of having a boy is higher in a rich family than in a poor one, in an educated family than in an uneducated

one, and in an urban family than in a rural one.

The study clearly shows that the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, 1994 is a failure, and that the intensity of the preference for sons together with the ease with which sex determination tests could be performed are factors which make the sex ratio so lopsided among the rich.

Saying that dowry and inheritance practices could be what causes families to want sons, the study raises the rather worrying possibility that as strong a preference for sons may simply be dormant among the poor. It goes on to say that their reduced access to technology may be what is preventing them from participating as actively in foetal sex determination followed by selective abortion.

Usually, education and awareness are touted as solutions to the problems of female infanticide and foeticide in India. Clearly, they are not solutions. It isn’t clear what would solve the problem though.