Ensuring daughter survival in Tamil Nadu, India

The south Indian state of Tamil Nadu is a relatively recent entrant to the list of Indian states exhibiting the phenomenon of "missing girls". A substantial proportion of these missing girls may be attributed to the differential survival of girls and boys in the 0-6 age group due to daughter elimination in the form of sex selection, neglect and infanticide. Notwithstanding the state's relatively recent history of daughter elimination, the government and NGOs in Tamil Nadu have been active in terms of data collection to track gender differences in survival and in introducing interventions to prevent daughter elimination. Against this background, this paper has two aims. First, it provides a temporal and spatial analysis of patterns of daughter deficits in Tamil Nadu over the period 1996 to 2003. Second, it undertakes an examination of the modus operandi, underlying assumptions, strengths and weaknesses of various interventions and assesses their effect on daughter limination.