Measuring sex-selective abortion: How many women abort?

Abstract

This paper demonstrates that sex-selective abortion induces a correlation between birth interval length and the sex of the next-born child. Using a statistical model, we show that shorter birth intervals for next-born girls indicate repeated sex-selective abortions between consecutive births. Analyzing data from India, we find evidence of repeated sex-selective abortions at birth order 2 when the first child is a girl, and strong evidence at birth order 3 when the first two children are girls. To quantify the extent of repeated abortions, we propose a maximum likelihood estimator that provides the number of women who abort and their likelihood of performing repeated abortions. Our estimation results reveal significant heterogeneity across birth orders, sibling compositions, and socio-demographic and geographic groups. Notably, literate and urban women who first had a girl rarely abort a second time, whereas women in northern India who first had two girls show a 13% likelihood of repeated sex-selective abortion. In this group, the estimated number of aborted female fetuses—the standard measure of sex-selective abortion—is 50% higher than the number of women who abort.