Books

The phrase “watering the neighbour’s garden” refers to wasting valuable resources on something that will not benefit oneself. This book addresses “the rampant demographic masculinisation” or “gender cleansing” in Asia. These two terms are used to define the phenomenon of increasing the numbers of boys and men relative to girls and women. In their introduction to the book, editors Attané and Guilmoto note that whereas neglect of infant girls, generally related to poverty, was previously a main cause of skewed sex ratios among infants, more recently new technologies have enabled sex-selective abortion among the middle and upper classes. The premise of the book is that social science research has not sufficiently addressed the significant problem of rigorous sex discrimination against girls, and the resultant skewed sex ratios. The editors contrast the relative lack of attention accorded to Asia’s estimated 100 million “missing” females — female babies that were never born and girls and women who died early — with international concern over AIDS-related deaths, which have affected one quarter of that number – 25 million — worldwide. The aim of the book is to focus attention on the hugely understudied issue of skewed sex ratios in a series of chapters that present studies of causes, consequences, practices, and meanings of the phenomenon, and the ways in which it is addressed, or indeed, not addressed. The majority of the chapters (12 out of 17) deal with the People’s Republic of China and/or India, the two countries responsible for the largest numbers of missing girls and women. One of the China chapters focuses on trans-national migration, marriage, and trafficking at the China-Vietnam border. Also included are chapters on Singapore, Bangladesh, and South Korea, a chapter on marriage migration from Vietnam to Taiwan, and a chapter on three countries in the Caucasus region — Azerbaidjan, Georgia, and Armenia.

From AMC conference on Female Deficit in Asia: Trends and Perspectives, 5-7 December 2005.