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Why do Parents Abort Girls? Patrilocality and its Historical Origin

Audio and transcript from the Asia Health Policy Program seminar "Why do Parents Abort Girls? Patrilocality and its Historical Origin" on Jan. 15, 2014, with Avraham Ebenstein.

Recent scholarship has documented an alarming increase in the sex ratio at birth in parts of East Asia, South Asia and the Caucuses. Ebenstein argues that parents in these regions engage in sex selection because of patrilocal norms that dictate elderly coresidence between parents and sons. Sex ratios and coresidence rates are positively correlated when looking across countries, within countries across districts, and within districts across ethnic groups.