Just when in many of the less developed regions, girls' past disadvantage in mortality at ages between one and four appears to be easing, India and China have stepped in to spoil the party. A report has been published by the Population Division of Department of Economic and Social Affairs, United Nations, which shows that the two emerging countries have been the worst performers in addressing this malaise.
In India, female infant mortality was slightly higher than male infant mortality, but girls' survival disadvantage was particularly acute in the one-to-four years' age group, the Sex Differentials In Childhood Mortality report says. In the 2000s, the ratio of male to female child mortality was estimated to have fallen to 56. Expressed in terms of excess female mortality, this means the risk of dying between ages one and five is more than 75 per cent higher for girls, the highest in the world. Data from both the Sample Registration System and the National Family Health Surveys substantiate the declining sex ratio of mortality in this age group.
Moreover, China and India were the only two countries in the world where female infant mortality was higher than male infant mortality in the 2000s. In China, female disadvantage is particularly concentrated among young infants, and the sex ratio of infant mortality fell from 112 in the 1970s to 76 in the 2000s, that is, from a situation where infant mortality was 12 per cent higher for boys to one where infant mortality was 24 per cent lower for boys than for girls.
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