The Changing Geography of Gender in India Scott L. Fulford ∗ November 2013 Abstract This paper examines the changing distribution of where women and girls live in India at the smallest possible scale: India’s nearly 600,000 villages. Village India is becoming more homogeneous in its preferences for boys even as those preferences becomes more pronounced. A consequence is that more than two thirds of girls now grow up in villages where they are the minority. Most Indian women move on marriage, so parents’ sex selection decisions are felt well beyond the village. Yet marriage migration does not have an equalizing influence on sex- ual imbalances across villages. Linking all villages across two censuses, I show that changes in village infrastructure such as roads, power supplies, or health clinics are not related to changes in child sex. Geographically close villages reinforce each other’s preferences. The results sug- gest that there are no easy policy solutions for addressing the increasing masculinization of Indian society. JEL classification: O15; J12; J16 Keywords: Sex ratios; Marriage migration; Son preference; Geographic distribution of women; Asia; India ∗Boston College Department of Economics and International Studies Program, 140 Commonwealth Ave, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467; email:
[email protected]. Thanks to Mashfiqur Khan who provided research assistance, the Boston College Faculty Workshop on Global Development, and the participants and organizers at the 2013 World Bank/Center for Global Development/Agence Franc¸aise de Development´ International Conference on Migration and Development in Morocco. 1 Introduction Child sex ratios have become more masculine across Asia over the last three decades, partly driven by the spread of sex selective abortions (Guilmoto, 2009).