Female infanticide

Female infanticide is the deliberate killing of newborn female children. In countries with a history of female infanticide, the modern practice of sex-selective abortion is often discussed as a closely related issue. Female infanticide is a major cause of concern in several nations such as China and India. It has been argued that the "low status" in which women are viewed in patriarchal societies creates a bias against females.

In 1978, anthropologist Laila Williamson, in a summary of data she had collated on how widespread infanticide was among both tribal and developed, or "civilized" nations, found that infanticide had occurred on every continent and was carried out by groups ranging from hunter gatherers to highly developed societies and that rather than this practice being an exception, it has been commonplace. The practice has been well documented among the indigenous peoples of Australia, Northern Alaska and South Asia, and Barbara Miller argues the practice to be "almost universal", even in the West. Miller contends that in regions where women are not employed in agriculture and regions in which dowries are the norm then female infanticide is commonplace, and in 1871 in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, Charles Darwin wrote that the practice was commonplace among the aboriginal tribes of Australia.

In 1990, Amartya Sen writing in the New York Review of Books estimated that there were 100 million fewer women in Asia than would be expected, and that this amount of "missing" women "tell[s] us, quietly, a terrible story of inequality and neglect leading to the excess mortality of women." Initially Sen's suggestion of gender bias was contested and it was suggested that hepatitis B was the cause of the alteration in the natural sex ratio. However it is now widely accepted that the numerical worldwide deficit in women, is due to gender specific abortions, infanticide and neglect.

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