Working Paper: NBER ID: w13828
Authors: Tanika Chakraborty; Sukkoo Kim
Abstract: This paper explores the relationship between kinship institutions and sex ratios in India at the turn of the twentieth century. Since kinship rules varied by caste, language, religion and region, we construct sex-ratios by these categories at the district-level using data from the 1901 Census of India for Punjab (North), Bengal (East) and Madras (South). We find that the female to male sex ratio varied inversely by caste-rank, rose as one moved from the North to the East and then to the South, was lower for Hindus than Muslims, and was lower for the northern Indo-Aryan rather than the southern Dravidian speaking peoples. We also find that the female deficit was greater in wheat growing regions and in areas with higher rainfall and alluvial soil. We argue that these systematic patterns in the data are largely explained by variations in the institution of family, kinship and inheritance.
Keywords: No keywords provided
JEL Codes: J12; N35; O17
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| kinship institutions (J12) | sex ratios (J79) |
| caste rank (Z13) | sex ratios (J79) |
| language (Y20) | sex ratios (J79) |
| geographic factors (R12) | sex ratios (J79) |
| higher caste groups (J15) | lower sex ratios (J79) |
| northern Indo-Aryan languages (Y80) | lower sex ratios (J79) |
| higher rainfall and wheat cultivation (Q15) | lower sex ratios (J79) |