Economic Growth, Intra-Household Resource Allocation and Gender Inequality

摘要

As poor countries experience economic growth, gender inequality in health and education often gets worse. An extreme case of gender inequality is reflected in the sordid statistic on missing women. In the last decades, in rapidly developing countries such as China and India, the female-to-male sex ratios in the population have actually declined sharply. Studies show that in the under-20 age category, the number of Chinese boys exceeds the number of Chinese girls by as many as 32 million and that there may be 100 million or more missing women in these countries. Excess female mortality has likely resulted from preferential parental investment in children, including a general neglect of girls' health.