Sex ratio and literacy

India's sex ratio has been low and mostly falling for a century:

Even more worrying is the child sex ratio (ages 0–6): it fell from 976 in 1961 to 919 in 2011, and since 2001 it has been below the overall ratio.

Why? It cannot be explained by mothers dying in childbirth: maternal mortality has been falling. The cause is differential treatment of girls:

• neglect of girl babies, in food and health care;
• sex-selective abortion, using ultrasound tests to find the sex of the unborn child;
• in some places, female infanticide.

A striking fact: the lowest child sex ratios are in the prosperous regions, such as Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh and Delhi, not the poorest. Wealth gives access to technology, while the preference for sons remains. Prosperity alone does not end bias.

The PNDT Act (Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, 1996, strengthened in 2003) bans tests to find the sex of the foetus. The Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao campaign aims to save and educate girls.

Literacy has improved greatly, to about 73 per cent in 2011. Female literacy has been rising faster than male literacy, and the male–female gap fell to 16.3 percentage points. But big gaps remain: SCs and STs lag behind, and so do states like Bihar, while Kerala has reached near-universal literacy.