StudentShare
Contact Us
Sign In / Sign Up for FREE
Search
Go to advanced search...
Free

The Search for 100 Million Missing Women - Essay Example

Cite this document
Summary
The Search for 100 Million Missing Women: The author duo of Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner have made economics accessible to the general reader through their popular work Freakonomics and its sequel. Continuing on with the spirit of scholarly adventure, they yet again unfold unexpected correlations in understanding odd phenomenon…
Download full paper File format: .doc, available for editing
GRAB THE BEST PAPER94.1% of users find it useful
The Search for 100 Million Missing Women
Read Text Preview

Extract of sample "The Search for 100 Million Missing Women"

The Search for 100 Million Missing Women: The duo of Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner have made economics accessible to the general reader through their popular work Freakonomics and its sequel. Continuing on with the spirit of scholarly adventure, they yet again unfold unexpected correlations in understanding odd phenomenon. In the article in question, originally published in Slate magazine in May of 2005, the authors connect the dots and explain the skewed sex ratio in some parts of the Third World.

Amartya Sen, who has done extensive research on the problems of the Third World, especially his native India, originally attributed the skewed sex ratio to a list of social ills. This includes preference for boy babies in a patriarchal society, leading to female infanticide; neglect of baby girls in terms of care, nutrition and education; trafficking of adolescent girls through prostitution. Sen argued that all these factors combined to create a disparity of 100 million missing women in Asia.

Although the reasons given by Sen are true, they only account for 50 million missing women. Looking to explore this statistical void, other economists took interest in the problem. One such was Emily Oster, who pursued the link between Hepatitis B occurrence and Asia's missing women population. By perusing reliable repository of medical statistics from the region, Oster was able to establish a definite link between Hepatitis B incidence levels and sex ratio in India, China and Pakistan. Backed by reliable statistics and a provable thesis, the finding has altered conventional wisdom.

In this case, Oster's finding corrected and expanded Amartya Sen's stated reasons for skewered sex ratio. At the core of the finding's success is the absence of 'n of 1' patterns in the data. As Oster's own personal history as a prodigious child shows, discounting exceptions to the rule is an important aspect of proper scientific research. In other words, the proper objective of economists should be to “take a mass of disparate numbers and somehow wring from it one thing that is true” (Levitt & Dubner, 2005) Beyond the ingenuity showed by Emily Oster in accounting for millions of missing women is the sad truth about developing economies.

In countries such as India, China and Pakistan, steeped as they are in patriarchal tradition, the birth of female babies are frowned upon. One reason for this is the perception of female babies as economic liabilities to the family. The 'dowry' system, which requires payments and gifts to the bride-groom at the time of marriage, saps away most of the economic resources of a family. Consequently, the birth of a female baby is seldom an occasion for celebration. Even in the Emily Oster study, we learn that India scored poorly in the correlation between Hepatitis B and sex ratio.

This suggests that other causes, originally attributed by Amartya Sen, are more at play in the country. It is sad that such inhumane practices as female infanticide still goes on in countries such as India and China, which are projected to be upcoming economic superpowers. A social transformation is a more pressing need now than mere economic progress. Reference: Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt (May, 2005), The Search for 100 Million Missing Women : An economics detective story, Column: The Dismal Science, Slate magazine, retrieved from on 19th March, 2011.

Read More
Cite this document
  • APA
  • MLA
  • CHICAGO
(“The Search for 100 Million Missing Women Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words”, n.d.)
Retrieved from https://studentshare.org/other/1412629-the-search-for
(The Search for 100 Million Missing Women Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 Words)
https://studentshare.org/other/1412629-the-search-for.
“The Search for 100 Million Missing Women Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 Words”, n.d. https://studentshare.org/other/1412629-the-search-for.
  • Cited: 0 times

CHECK THESE SAMPLES OF The Search for 100 Million Missing Women

How does the woman consumer get affected by the fashion inner store environment

Indirect use of non-glaring white light makes women look younger.... women take pride in their ability to shop prudently and well.... 41) Unlike their male counterparts, women make purchasing decisions in a more complex, roundabout way.... The fashion store's stand is to help women consumers when they need help, and lay low when they don't; to let their buying minds complete the sale by giving them space and information to match the beautiful design of the products in the store....
15 Pages (3750 words) Essay

Empowerment of women by migratory process

This study was aimed at identifying the global care chain opportunities for women migrants and in the process how they are able to contribute to globalisation and to extend support for working mothers abroad, besides emancipation of themselves and dependant families back home.... hellip; We have also seen the various aspects of migration and how it contributes to a nation's economy and what are the impediments and hardships that a nanny has to experience while she remains part of the global care chain This study was aimed at identifying the global care chain opportunities for women migrants and in the process how they are able to contribute to globalisation and to extend support for working mothers abroad, besides emancipation of themselves and dependant families back home....
49 Pages (12250 words) Essay

Aftermath: The Remnants of War

He is an ex-senior editor for Outside magazine, and is a regular provider for such periodicals namely the NYT Magazine, the New Yorker, National Geographic, Smithsonian, and Men's Journal.... hellip; He is presently at work on his second book, ‘The Burma Road, a history of World War Two's China-Burma-India Theater of operations....
12 Pages (3000 words) Essay

Efficacy of Antiretroviral Drugs in Reducing Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV-AID

The proposed review will be… EMBASE, Medline and Cochrane Library will be researched for information related to MTCT of HIV and use of ARVs by the pregnant Zambian women.... Publication will be assessed through constructing a publication funnel plot while using Duval and Tweedie's trim and fill process in ascertaining the number of the publications missing in the event of a bias.... The 2008 Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic indicates that an estimated 22 million people were infected with HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa (UNAIDS, 2008)....
12 Pages (3000 words) Essay

Law and Human Trafficking

hellip; The author states that high rate of missing children in the various countries makes Human Trafficking a global crisis and raises much concern for the integrity of human morals and intention of the traffickers who were stealing children from the countries.... In the paper “Law and Human Trafficking” the author examines the human trafficking as a sort of slavery in which someone or group of people benefit from having the control over others whom they exploit and misuse for their selfish interest....
9 Pages (2250 words) Essay

Obama's Decision about the Cultural Freedoms of the Indians

hellip; The author states Obama outlined that he would fight for Indian women's health, manage the hunting and fishing rights wisely, extend the health care to Indian veterans, preserve the religious and cultural freedoms of the Indians and expand the health care services provided to the Indian communities.... In the case of sovereignty, the Obama platform stated that Native American tribes were sovereignty and they would enjoy cordial relationships with the United States federal government (Wilkins and Stark 100)....
9 Pages (2250 words) Coursework

Women in Poverty Stricken Countries

This report "women in Poverty Stricken Countries" discusses women who live in poverty.... hellip; With all the talk about women's rights in recent decades, it is sobering to consider that little process has actually been made.... nbsp; Stephen Lewis recently noted, in speaking about the nations of Africa, “The atmosphere of benign neglect, compounded by the rooted gender inequality, all adds up to a death sentence for countless millions of women in the developing world....
11 Pages (2750 words) Report

The Wasp Woman 1959

The paper "The Wasp Woman 1959" focuses on the importance of cosmetic science to illustrate the reasons why people are obsessed with the notion of looking young with respect to how the movie 'The Wasp Woman 1959' demonstrates it, including the author's detailed analysis.... hellip; When Winthrop provides her what looks like an amazing opportunity to modify the guidelines in the center of the experience, she leaps at it with hardly a believed for the possible adverse repercussions....
8 Pages (2000 words) Movie Review
sponsored ads
We use cookies to create the best experience for you. Keep on browsing if you are OK with that, or find out how to manage cookies.
Contact Us