Let me inform you of the following research seminar.

Date: January 27 (Friday), 2023
Time: 5:15PM-6:45PM
Venue: 11th Floor, Bldg.No.2 Meeting Room B & ZOOM (HyFlex)
Speaker:  Pramod Kumar Sur  (Asian Growth Research Institute) 　
Organizer: Yuki Higuchi
Language: English

Title: The Political Origins of Missing Women

Abstract:
In the 1990s, Amartya Sen coined the phrase “missing women,” demonstrating a terrible deficit of women in the developing world, and in India alone, about 37 million women are missing. What explains such a tragic phenomenon? In this paper, I study the political origins of missing women in India. By examining a historical event, I present evidence that a short-term policy implemented by the government can induce significant changes in sex ratios and initiate long-term persistent effects. In particular, I examine the draconian forced sterilization policy implemented by the Indian government between 1976 and 1977, under which more than 8 million individuals were sterilized. Using Vital Statistics, I first demonstrate that the forced sterilization policy led to a sharp rise in infant deaths between 0-7 days. Using the Census dataset and employing a Difference-in-Difference and event study estimation approach, I further document that the policy increased the ratio of boys to girls and caused a sizable decline in the number of girls.

* Please contact the organizer via email, if you'd like to participate in the online seminar.
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