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They Say: Missing Girls? Blame Early Weaning
The NY Times Freakonomics blog links to a working paper that attempts to connect breastfeeding and weaning with population effects.
Stanford’s Seema Jayachandran and Princeton’s Ilyana Kuziemko argue that a preference for boys tempts mothers to wean daughters significantly sooner than their sons.
The earlier they wean, the earlier they can again conceive and roll the dice that this time it’ll be a boy.
Meanwhile, the weaned daughters have been deprived of the health benefits breast-milk and nursing may provide and are more vulnerable to illness and death, particularly in the developing world where the study is focused.
The authors conclude that the “breastfeeding factor” accounts for 14 percent of India’s “missing girls.” More boys survive infancy than girls.
Early gender screening and abortion — or, after birth, infanticide — are not the only reason for a gender imbalance in populations where boys are preferred.
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7 Comments
[...] Missing Girls? Blame Early Weaning [...]
Dads: The New Moms | Strollerderby commented on Jun 20 09 at 3:58 pm[...] is really fascinating. The NYT Freakonomics bloggers argue that early weaning from the breast is significantly impacting the declining number of females among India’s overall population: Stanford’s Seema [...]
mamapundit » Blog Archive » The Freakonomics of (not) breastfeeding commented on Aug 18 09 at 9:29 amAli commented on Jun 18 09 at 1:36 pmYou can conceive while breastfeeding. This makes no sense.
GP commented on Jun 18 09 at 2:04 pmYou CAN, but extended breastfeeding holds off ovulation. That coupled with the likely rougher daily lives of these women, working manual labor, etc, giving them fairly strenuous exercise, is a form of natural child spacing that traditional cultures typically experience. That, and they nurse round the clock, with their kid right on them and sleeping next to them. I myself did this and didn’t ovulate for 20 months…
Shannon commented on Jun 18 09 at 7:47 pmThis is in line with a book I just read about the effects of multiple caregivers on the odds of children living to maturity. It said while a maternal grandmother can decrease an infant’s chance of dying by half, a paternal grandmother in male-preference cultures can cut the odds of girls surviving. In one example, a paternal grandmother took the female of boy-girl twins from the mother so she wouldn’t compete with her brother for breastmilk. The grandmother fed the baby diluted formula nad she died of malnutrition.
GP commented on Jun 18 09 at 9:04 pmso sad…that is truly despicable
Marj commented on Jun 22 09 at 12:02 amIn many male-child preferred cultures, males are given better and more food their entire lives. If food is scarce, the male child will be given enough, and the female child will be malnourished. It is hard to fight disease when you are slowly starving to death.
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