Adamou, A., Drakos, C. and Iyer, S.

Missing Women in the United Kingdom

CWPE1306

Abstract: This paper investigates the gender-selection decisions of immigrants in the United Kingdom, using data from the 1971-2006 General Household Survey. We examine sex-selective abortion in the UK among immigrant families and the gender composition of previous births, conditional on socio-economic characteristics. Our key result is that immigrants balance their family after the birth of two sons, by having a daughter thereafter. Our study also is the first to estimate the number of missing women among Asian immigrants in a European country, contributing to research on the US and Canada that missing women are also a phenomenon of the developed world.

JEL Codes: J13 J15 O52 Z13

Author links: Sriya Iyer  

PDF: https://www.econ.cam.ac.uk/research-files/repec/cam/pdf/cwpe1306.pdf

Open Access Link: https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.5765

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