Excess Female Deaths

A recent article in The Economist discusses what the article refers to as the "missing women" of the world, which it defines as "women who have died because the rate of female mortality is disproportionately high compared with men's." This includes sex-selective abortion, which accounts for the largest share of "missing women" or "excess female deaths," as a related Daily Chart blog refers to them as. According to the chart (below) from the blog, which is based on results from the 2011 World Development Report, sex-selective abortion resulted in 1 million excess female deaths in China and 257,000 in India in 2011. This has already resulted in distorted gender ratios in China, with roughly 105 boys for every 100 girls born. While sex-selective abortion accounts for the largest portion of excess female deaths, the largest growth in these deaths has been in Africa among women between the ages of 15 and 49. According to the chart, there were 751,000 excess female deaths in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2011.

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