India's sex ratio at birth (SRB) has become increasingly masculine, coinciding with a declining total fertility rate. Couples often resort to sex-selective abortion or even infanticide to ensure the birth of a son. We use household-level data from all four waves of India's National Family Health Survey (NFHS) to investigate the effect of India's demographic transition on the SRB. Mixed-effects logit regression analysis demonstrates that since the early 1990s, the probability of a third-order birth being male is decreasing in the number of sons previously born, while for second-order births, this effect does not become apparent until the 2000s. Accounting for geographic heterogeneity in the fertility transition, we find additional heterogeneity in son preference and sex selection at the village/neighborhood level. This heterogeneity has strengthened over time at both second- and third-order births and in more and less gender skewed regions of the country, suggesting potential convergence in sex ratios across India. By incorporating the most recent 2015–16 round of the NFHS, we demonstrate that previously documented trends in sex selection continue, and additionally that sex selection is increasingly occurring at lower parities as the desire for a smaller family combines with the traditional preference for sons.

中文翻译：

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印度的重男轻女和生育压力

印度的出生性别比（SRB）变得越来越男性化，这与总生育率的下降相吻合。夫妻经常采用性别选择性堕胎甚至杀婴来确保儿子的出生。我们使用来自印度全国家庭健康调查 (NFHS) 的所有四波的家庭数据来调查印度人口转变对 SRB 的影响。混合效应 logit 回归分析表明，自 1990 年代初以来，三胎为男性的概率随着先前出生的儿子数量而减少，而对于二胎而言，这种影响直到 2000 年代才变得明显。考虑到生育转变中的地理异质性，我们发现村/邻里层面的儿子偏好和性别选择存在额外的异质性。随着时间的推移，这种异质性在二胎和三胎以及该国越来越少的性别偏斜地区都得到了加强，这表明印度各地的性别比例可能趋于一致。通过纳入 2015-16 年最新一轮的 NFHS，我们证明了先前记录的性别选择趋势仍在继续，此外，随着对小家庭的渴望与对儿子的传统偏好相结合，性别选择越来越多地发生在较低的生育率中。