Endangered Daughters

This work asks the controversial question of why millions of girls do not appear to be surviving to adulthood in contemporary Asia. The author investigates the extent of discrimination against female children in Asia and shifts the focus of attention firmly from son-preference to daughter-discrimination. The book paints a picture of daughter discrimination across Asia today, from excessive child mortality to the witholding of health care and education on the basis of gender. It argues that the increasing availability of sex-identification technologies will serve only to supplement older forms of infanticide and neglect. Startlingly, it reveals that, in China, India and across Asia, daughter discrimination is actually on the increase despite rising economic development, declining fertility and the generally improved status of women. This account of an appalling phenomenon still hidden and unacknowledged across the world should be essential reading for all those interested in gender in contemporary society.

..."A helpful corrective, reminding us that the real sufferers are the girls who survive the discrimination that has marked them since before their birth-and the many who never reach adulthood at all.."-The Economist "Endangered Daughters is a wonderfully engaging exploration of an extremely important - and profoundly disturbing - problem. I hope Elisabeth Croll's quite excellent book gets the wide readership it richly deserves.."-Amartya Sen, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, 1998