Missing women in colonial India

We construct novel data on female population shares by age, district, and religion in South Asia from 1881 to 1931. Sex ratios skew male in Northern India and are more balanced in Southern and Eastern India, including Burma. Male‐biased sex ratios emerge most visibly after age 10, and this is not sp...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Economic history review Vol. 78; no. 4; pp. 997 - 1038
Main Authors: Fenske, James, Gupta, Bishnupriya, Neumann, Cora
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Oxford Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.11.2025
Subjects:
Bias
Colonialism
Hindus
Literature
Males
missing women
Muslims
Religion
Religious cultural groups
Rice
Sex ratio
Sikhs
South Asia
Suitability
Wheat
Women
ISSN:0013-0117, 1468-0289
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:We construct novel data on female population shares by age, district, and religion in South Asia from 1881 to 1931. Sex ratios skew male in Northern India and are more balanced in Southern and Eastern India, including Burma. Male‐biased sex ratios emerge most visibly after age 10, and this is not specific to any one region, religion, or time period. Sikhs have the most male‐biased sex ratios, followed by Hindus, Muslims, and Jains. The female share correlates across religious groups within districts. Evidence that sex ratios correlate with suitability for wheat and rice is weaker than suggested by the existing literature.
Bibliography:Summary
We construct novel data on female population shares by age, district, and religion in South Asia from 1881 to 1931 that show the sex ratio to be more male biased in the North compared with the South and East and its correlation across religious groups within districts. We find evidence of persistence over a century.
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Novel data on female population shares by age, district, and religion in South Asia from 1881 to 1931 show male bias in the North and correlation across religions within a district. The regional male bias is persistent over a century.
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ISSN:0013-0117
1468-0289
DOI:10.1111/ehr.13413