Virtually all experts have called BS on the Indian government's figures, as it is impossible to bridge such a massive numbers gap.
An Indian government survey says so - but the numbers don't add up.
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"If over 30 to 40 years we have eliminated tens of millions of girls, our actual deficit of birth would be even larger by 2021. And if there's such a large deficit of women, how is it even possible to believe that this number is credible?"
Demographers say if there's no discrimination against girls then the ideal sex ratio at birth is expected to be 952, but the latest survey puts it at 929.
Mr George says it means that "there's still a 23-point - or 2% - difference between the ideal and the reality".
"It shows we are still killing millions of girls," he said. "If there are 26 million births in India every year, they add up to 130 million births in the past five years. This means we've killed 2.6 million girls in just the past five years. This is a disgrace for the country. There's nothing to celebrate."
There are 1,020 women per 1,000 men in India according to the recently released Fifth Edition of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5). Such a sex ratio ha
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demography experts say it is not the time to rejoice yet as the figures do not give an accurate picture of India’s sex ratio.
The NFHS-5 report has itself advised caution. “Readers should be cautious while interpreting and comparing
the trends as some states and Union territories may have smaller sample sizes,” it said.
NFHS-5 had gathered information from 636,699 households, 724,115 women and 101,839 men.
The second reason was a significant improvement in the sex ratio in India during the last 30 years, Mishra added.
He stated that interpreting the figure in terms of India now having more women than men was completely misleading.
There are now 1,037 women per 1,000 men in India’s rural areas according to NFHS-5, which is a new record.
But according to experts, the possibility of migrant rural men and women being away from their homes on the last night of the de facto enumeration cannot be ruled out.
The fieldwork for NFHS-5 was conducted in two phases by 17 field agencies. Phase 1 was from June 17, 2019-January 30, 2020. Phase 2 was from January 2, 2020-April 30, 2021.
The second phase was held at the height of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. That is when fieldwork had been done in states with large as well as floating populations such as Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.
This was the time when many migrant workers from these states had returned to their home villages.
In Madhya Pradesh, there were 970 women per 1,000 men whereas there were 1,017 women per 1,000 men in Uttar Pradesh. Odisha had 1,063 women per 1,000 men and Rajasthan had 1,009 women per 1,000 men.
There were 957 women for every 1,000 men in India’s rural areas but only 928 women for every 1,000 men in urban areas, according to NFHS-2 in 1998. This suggested that more men than women had migrated to urban areas.
Jashodhara Dasgupta, a sex ratio expert
told DTE that census figures were more reliable than NFHS. That is because the entire population of the country was counted during a census and the sex ratio was then calculated on the total number.
“NFHS counts only certain women, who belong to specific demographic categories. There is a bias in it. Just look at the state figures where the sample size is too small. We will have to wait for the next census figures to get a clearer picture,” she said.
Nand Lal Mishra, a research fellow at the International Institute of Population Sciences, Mumbai told
Down To Earth that the overestimation of sex ratio (number of women per 1,000 men) in NFHS-5 was due to two major reasons.
First, the sex ratio mentioned in the factsheet was based on de facto enumeration, meaning the number of males and females who were present in the household on the last night of the survey.