Trends in Sex Ratio

The 1991 Census counted 927 females to every 1,000 males in the Indian population. That was an all-time low level in the recorded female-to-male ratio. It laid to rest the sanguine prospect generated by the previous census, which showed an improvement in the ratio: to 934 in 1981 from 930 in 1971. Indeed, there has been a secular decline in the sex ratio from the beginning of this century. Some probing into what lies behind the long-term trend and its reestablishment in 1991 suggests - as the studies reviewed here do - that a further decline in the ratio is quite probable when the first count is made in the next millennium.