Social Demography of Excess Female Mortality in India New Directions Alice W Clark Discussions of sex differentials in mortality in South Asia have suffered from a lack of theoretical depth. On what basis do we decide that a certain mortality difference must be socially rather than purely biologically derived? The answer is usually to compare the observed mortality difference to the expected difference based on western experience, but this glosses over the need to examine South Asian environments and epidemiology for their own expected effects on sex differentials. In addition, what are the expected biological sex-differential outcomes of levels of mortality that are, by international standards, extremely high? Are age-specific patterns of mortality for both sexes different from those based on western models, and why? Is the relationship between these sexspecific patterns different than it is in western experience?
