. T he D eclining S ex - ratio in I ndia The sex ratio is an important indicator of gender balance in the population. As mentioned in the section on concepts earlier, historically, the sex ratio has been slightly in favour of females, that is, the number of females per males has generally been somewhat higher than . However, India has had a declining sex-ratio for more than a century, as is clear from Table .
From females per males at the turn of the twentieth century, the sex ratio has declined to at the turn of the twenty-first century. The trends of the last four decades have been particularly worrying – from in the sex ratio had fallen to an all-time low of in before posting a modest increase in . According to Census of India sex ratio has increased and now it is females per males. But what has really alarmed demographers, policy makers, social activists and concerned citizens is the drastic fall in the child sex ratio.
Age specific sex ratios began to be computed in . As is shown in Table , the sex ratio for the – years age group (known as the juvenile or child sex ratio) has generally been substantially higher than the overall sex ratio for all age groups, but it has been falling very sharply. In fact the decade – represents an anomaly in that the overall sex ratio has posted its highest ever increase of points from the all time low of to , but the child sex ratio has dropped from to , a plunge of points taking it below the overall sex ratio for the first time. In Census (provisional) the child sex ratio again decreased by points and now it is .
The problem, however, is employment. Data from the Government of India sources reveal a sharp fall in the rate of employment generation (creation of new jobs) across both rural and urban areas. This is true for the young as well. The rate of growth of employment in the – age group, which stood at around .
per cent a year between and for both rural and urban men, fell to . for rural men and . per cent for urban men during to . This suggests that the advantage offered by a young labour force is not being exploited.
Strategies exist to exploit the demographic window of opportunity that India has today. But India’s recent experience suggests that market forces by themselves do not ensure that such strategies would be implemented. Unless a way forward is found, we may miss out on the potential benefits that the country’s changing age structure temporarily offers. [Source: Adapted from an article by C.P.
Chandrashekhar in Frontline Volume - Issue , January – , ]