Endangered Daughters: Discrimination and Development in AsiaThis unique and groundbreaking book seeks to re-focus gender debate onto the issue of daughter discrimination - a phenomenon still hidden and unacknowledged across the world. It asks the controversial question of why millions of girls do not appear to be surviving to adulthood in contemporary Asia. In the first major study available of this emotive and sensitive issue, Elisabeth Croll investigates the extent of discrimination against female children in Asia and shifts the focus of attention firmly from son-preference to daughter-discrimination. This book brings together demographic data and anthropological field studies to reveal the multiple ways in which girls are disadvantaged, from excessive child mortality to the withholding of health care and education on the basis of gender. Focusing especially on China and India, the book reveals the surprising coincidence of increasing daughter discrimination with rising economic development, declining fertility and the generally improved status of women in East and South Asia. Essential reading for all those interested in gender in contemporary society. |
Contents
A weaker destiny daughter discrimination | 1 |
Son preference | 7 |
Daughter discrimination | 10 |
Family planning | 13 |
Gender reasoning | 16 |
Targeting daughters | 18 |
Demographic narratives missing girls | 21 |
Republic of Korea | 40 |
Neglect and survival | 103 |
The generations expectations and entitlements | 106 |
Planning families | 108 |
The intergenerational contract | 111 |
Sonparent support | 113 |
Doubleloss daughters | 121 |
Daughter entitlements | 127 |
Familial exclusion | 129 |
Taiwan | 45 |
Vietnam | 47 |
India | 49 |
Bangladesh | 63 |
Pakistan | 67 |
Ethnographic voices disappointing daughters | 70 |
China | 71 |
Welcoming a son | 75 |
Rural demands | 80 |
Urban preference | 85 |
Daughter neglect | 87 |
India | 90 |
The quest for a son | 91 |
A lesser welcome | 96 |
Interpreting gender hierarchy and difference | 132 |
Cultures of gender | 133 |
Divisions of labour | 140 |
Gendered perceptions | 143 |
Gender and development | 148 |
The girl child agendas and campaigns | 153 |
The girl child | 154 |
Indias girl child | 159 |
Chinas girl child | 165 |
Daughter empowerment a new destiny? | 182 |
Notes | 188 |
| 205 | |
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Common terms and phrases
Anhui Ansley Coale Asian societies attention Bangladesh behaviour Beijing birth control birth order born census child mortality China continue contraception costs couples cultural daugh daughter discrimination death demographic differential discrimination against daughters dowry East and South East Asia economic development emphasised ethnographic excess female mortality family planning female births female infant female infanticide fertility decline foetus gender composition gender difference girl child Gu Baochang higher households Ibid identified important increase India infant and child inter-generational Korea less male marriage married mortality rates mothers natal families number of missing one-child policy parents parity Patricia Jeffery Pradesh province Punjab ratios at birth recent regions rising rural sex identification sex preference sex ratios sex-selective abortion showed single-child social South Asia statistics status studies suggest survival Tamil Nadu tion total fertility rate trends UNICEF urban Uttar Pradesh village women Women's Federation young