This research note is prompted by a paper by Kashyap (Is prenatal sex selection associated with lower female child mortality? Population Studies 73(1): 57–78). Kashyap’s paper, which provides 40 original estimates of missing female births, relies on an alternative definition of missing female births, leading to estimates of about half the magnitude of other estimates. There appears, therefore, a real need to take stock of the concept of missing female births widely used by statisticians around the world for assessing the demographic consequences of prenatal sex selection. This research note starts with a brief review of the history of the concept and the difference between Amartya Sen’s original method and the alternative method found elsewhere to compute missing female births. We then put forward three different arguments (deterministic and probabilistic approaches, and consistency analysis) in support of the original computation procedure based on the number of observed male births and the expected sex ratio at birth.

中文翻译：

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关于由于产前性别选择而导致的女性出生缺失的估计。

该研究说明是由Kashyap的论文提出的（产前性别选择是否与较低的女童死亡率相关？人口研究73（1）：57-78）。Kashyap的论文提供了40个女性失踪的原始估计，它依赖于女性失踪的另一种定义，得出的估计数约为其他估计数的一半。因此，确实有必要对世界上统计学家广泛使用的失踪女性出生的概念进行评估，以评估产前性别选择的人口后果。本研究笔记首先简要回顾了这一概念的历史，以及阿玛蒂亚·森（Amartya Sen）的原始方法与其他地方用来计算失踪女性出生率的替代方法之间的区别。