Sex ratio, gender and literacy

Detail

1. Gender: from biological difference to discrimination

• Gender means the roles and behaviour that society expects from people because of their sex. Sex is the biological difference.
• NCERT box: "Promoting Gender Sensitivity through 'Beti Bachao-Beti Padhao' Social Campaign"
• Society divides people into male, female and transgender, and treats this division as natural.
• Social roles and institutions (family, school, workplace, religion) turn this biological difference into discrimination (unfair treatment) and exclusion (keeping people out).

• Result: women and transgender persons are denied education, jobs, representation, equal pay and dignity. NCERT calls this denial a "crime against humanity".

• UNDP Human Development Report (HDR) 1995 focused on gender. It warned: "If development is not engendered it is endangered."

• Engendered here means planned so that women and men gain equally.
• Growth that leaves out half the population will not last.

2. Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (BBBP)

• Beti Bachao Beti Padhao means "Save the daughter, educate the daughter". It is a government campaign to change how society values girls.
• Launch: 22 January 2015 at Panipat (Haryana). The Prime Minister launched it [2].

• Panipat is in Haryana, the state with the lowest sex ratio (879) in Census 2011. This is why the place was chosen.

• Aims:

• stop the fall in the Child Sex Ratio (CSR);
• prevent gender-biased sex-selective elimination, which means aborting a foetus because it is a girl;

• help girls survive, stay safe (protection) and go to school (education) [2].

• Coverage: it began in 100 gender-critical districts, where the child sex ratio was lowest. It now covers the whole country.

• Ministries: it is run jointly by three ministries:
• Women and Child Development (WCD), the lead ministry;
• Health and Family Welfare;

• Education.

• Target: raise the Sex Ratio at Birth (SRB) by 2 points every year [2].

• Results (HMIS data):
• HMIS (Health Management Information System) is the health ministry's record of births reported by health facilities.
• The national SRB was 918 in 2014-15. It rose to 930 in 2023-24 [2] and was 929 in 2024-25 [3].

3. Sex ratio: definition and Census 2011 pattern

• Sex ratio (India): the number of females per 1,000 males.

• Many other countries and the UN count it the other way, as males per 100 females. Check which form a question uses.

• Census 2011 figures:

Indicator	Value (Census 2011)
Overall sex ratio, India	943
Highest among states	Kerala, 1,084
Lowest among states	Haryana, 879
Child sex ratio (age 0-6)	918, the lowest ever recorded

• Why Kerala is high:
• high female literacy;
• good health care for women;

• many men work outside the state, including in the Gulf countries, so fewer men are counted at home.

• Why Haryana is low:

• a strong preference for sons;
• sex-selective abortion;

• neglect of girl children.

• Why the child sex ratio matters:

• The overall ratio rose to 943, but the 0-6 ratio fell to 918.

• So the problem is getting worse among young children, even though older women now live longer.

• NFHS-5 (2019-21) recorded 1,020 women per 1,000 men in the household population. NFHS is the National Family Health Survey, a large sample survey.

• This was the first time a national survey found more women than men.
• It is a survey of households, not a full count. It does not replace the Census figure.

4. Sex ratio at birth (SRB)

• Sex ratio at birth (SRB): the number of girls born for every 1,000 boys born.
• Natural level: about 950.
• Biology produces about 105 boys for every 100 girls.
• 1,000 ÷ 1.05 ≈ 952, so a normal SRB is about 950.

• An SRB well below 950 is a sign that girls are being removed before birth.

• How a low SRB comes about:

• a family prefers sons (for dowry, inheritance, old-age support or rituals);
• an ultrasound scan is used to find out the sex of the foetus;
• the female foetus is aborted;

• fewer girls are born and the SRB falls.

• Where it is worst: the north-west, in Haryana, Punjab and Delhi (Census-era pattern; check current SRS values).

• SRS (Sample Registration System): the Registrar General's large sample survey of births and deaths. It gives SRB as a three-year average.
• NFHS-5 (2019-21) SRB [4]:
• national: 929, up 10 points from 919 in NFHS-4;
• highest: Ladakh 1,125, then Lakshadweep 1,051;
• lowest: Tamil Nadu 878, then Odisha and Telangana, 894 each;
• 23 States/UTs improved and 13 declined.

• Different surveys give different state rankings. Always quote the source and the year.

• PC-PNDT Act 1994 (Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act):

• It bans finding out the sex of a foetus.
• It bans telling anyone the sex of a foetus and advertising sex-determination services.
• Every ultrasound clinic must register under the Act.

5. "Missing women"

• Missing women: a term used by Amartya Sen in 1990.
• It means women who should be alive but are not.

• Sen compared the actual number of women with the number expected if girls and women got the same care as boys and men.

• Causes:

• neglect in food (nutrition) and health care for girls and women;

• sex-selective abortion, which became common after ultrasound spread.

• India's count runs into tens of millions.

6. Literacy

• Literate (Census definition): a person aged 7 or above who can read and write with understanding in any language.
• Census 2011 literacy:

Indicator	Value (Census 2011)
Overall	74.04%
Males	82.14%
Females	65.46%
Gender gap (male minus female)	about 16.7 percentage points
Highest state	Kerala, about 94%
Lowest state	Bihar, about 62%

• Where the gender gap is large:
• the Hindi belt (Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh);

• Scheduled Tribes (STs): tribal areas are remote, have fewer schools, and many children are not taught in their mother tongue.

• Literacy and work: the female Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR) rose from 23.3% (2017-18) to 41.7% (2023-24). The male LFPR rose from 75.8% to 78.8% over the same years (PLFS) [7].

• LFPR is the share of people who are working or looking for work.

• PLFS is the Periodic Labour Force Survey, run by the Ministry of Statistics (MoSPI).

• For education indices such as HDI and GER, see the human-development note.

7. Spatial overlap: one belt, three problems

• Low female literacy, high fertility and a poor sex ratio tend to occur in the same districts, especially in the north and north-west and the Hindi belt.

• Fertility here means the average number of children a woman has.

• How they are linked:

• Low female literacy leads to early marriage, little say in decisions and poor knowledge of health.
• Early marriage and low status lead to high fertility and son preference.

• Son preference leads to neglect of girls and sex-selective abortion, which gives an adverse sex ratio (a ratio unfavourable to females).

• Contrast: Kerala and Tamil Nadu have high female literacy, low fertility and better sex ratios.

• Exception: the north-west (Punjab, Haryana) is fairly rich and literate but still has a low child sex ratio. This shows that wealth alone does not remove son preference.

8. Census timeline: data sources for this section

• 1872: first Census, but not synchronous, meaning different regions were counted at different times.
• 1881: first synchronous Census, with the whole country counted at the same time.
• 2011: the latest completed Census. It is the source of all the sex ratio and literacy figures above.
• Census 2027:
• It has two phases [5][6]:
  • Houselisting and Housing Census (HLO): April to September 2026, held in a 30-day window in each State/UT;
  • Population Enumeration (PE): February 2027.
• Reference date: 00:00 hours, 1 March 2027. For Ladakh and the snow-bound areas of J&K, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, the reference date is 1 October 2026 [5][6].
• Caste enumeration: included after the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs decided on 30 April 2025. Until Census 2011, only SCs and STs were counted separately [5][6].
• It is India's first digital Census, with self-enumeration (people can fill in their own details online) [6].
• Its results will update the 2011 sex ratio and literacy figures.

Prelims Hooks

• BBBP: launched 22 January 2015 at Panipat, Haryana. The lead ministry is WCD, working with Health and Education. It started in 100 districts.
• Census 2011 sex ratio: India 943. Highest state Kerala 1,084, lowest state Haryana 879. Child sex ratio (0-6) 918, the lowest ever.
• Trap: NFHS-5 shows 1,020 women per 1,000 men. That is a household survey figure, not a Census figure.
• Trap: in NFHS-5, the lowest SRB was in Tamil Nadu (878), not Haryana. The highest was in Ladakh (1,125) [4].
• Natural SRB ≈ 950 girls per 1,000 boys, which is about 105 boys per 100 girls.
• PC-PNDT Act = 1994. It bans sex determination of a foetus.
• "Missing women" = Amartya Sen, 1990.
• UNDP HDR 1995: "If development is not engendered it is endangered."
• Literacy 2011: 74.04% (male 82.14%, female 65.46%). Highest Kerala, lowest Bihar.
• Census 2027 reference date: 1 March 2027. For snow-bound areas it is 1 October 2026 [5].

Mains Points

• Causes of an adverse sex ratio:
• son preference (dowry, inheritance, old-age support);
• cheap ultrasound and weak enforcement of the PC-PNDT Act;
• neglect of girls in food and health care, which produces "missing women".

• The problem is worst in the north-west, which shows that being richer does not end bias.

• Effects:

• a "marriage squeeze" (too few brides for the number of men);
• trafficking of brides from eastern states;
• violence against women;
• lower female labour supply and slower human development.

• This is UNDP's 1995 warning: development that leaves out women is in danger.

• Spatial overlap: low female literacy, high fertility and an adverse sex ratio cluster in the Hindi belt. Kerala and Tamil Nadu show that educating women lowers fertility and improves survival. Use a map-based answer.

• Policy response:
• BBBP, which aims to raise the SRB by 2 points a year; the SRB rose from 918 (2014-15) to 930 (2023-24) in HMIS data [2][3];
• the PC-PNDT Act;
• girls' education schemes.
• Census 2027 will show whether the improvement is real. Rising female LFPR (41.7% in 2023-24) [7] supports the case that education and jobs together empower women.