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GENDER SATURATION IN THE SOUTHERN CAUCASUS: FAMILY COMPOSITION AND SEX-SELECTIVE ABORTION

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 February 2014

MICHEL GARENNE  and
SOPHIE HOHMANN
MICHEL GARENNE*
Affiliation:
Institut Pasteur, Epidémiologie des Maladies Emergentes, Paris, France IRD, UMI Résiliences, Bondy, France Witwatersrand University, Johannesburg, South Africa
SOPHIE HOHMANN
Affiliation:
CNRS, CERCEC, Paris
*
1Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
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Summary

The study investigates the complex relationships between sex-selective abortion and family composition in two countries of the Southern Caucasus: Armenia and Azerbaijan. Data were drawn from maternity histories recorded in Demographic and Health Surveys (DHSs). In both countries, the relationship between the sex ratio of the next birth and the number of girls already born changed from negative to positive after 1992, when sex-selective abortion became prevalent. In Azerbaijan, but not in Armenia, a similar change was noticed for the relationship between the sex ratio of the next birth and the number of boys already born, this time from positive to negative. All changes in slopes were highly statistically significant. These findings indicate that sex-selective abortion was prevalent in both countries, and could work both ways in Azerbaijan. The results are interpreted in terms of ‘gender saturation’, that is a desire of families to better balance the composition of the family when too many children of the same sex are already born, which is consistent with opinion surveys indicating a preference for balanced families.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Biosocial Science , Volume 46 , Issue 6 , November 2014 , pp. 786 - 796
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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