Fertility decline and increasing gender imbalance in India, including a possible South Indian turnaround

Birth rates in India have been in a definite decline since about 1985. Howe ver, contrary to our assumption that fertility declines in this region hing e on improvements in the status of women, declining fertility seems to be g oing hand in hand with worsening population sex ratios. This article examin es the evidence for a causal connection between fertility decline and incre asing gender imbalance by looking at differences in fertility and in gender inequalities between North and South India in the past, and their increasi ng convergence in gender inequalities in recent years. It pays special atte ntion to the southern state of Tamil Nadu which has been in the forefront o f the country's fertility decline but is nevertheless moving towards a Nort h Indian pattern in many aspects of women's status. The Tamil Nadu example is a particularly striking way of studying the country-wide trend because i t represents a break from the past, in contrast to North India, where incre asing gender differentials may be seen more as an accentuation of long-exis ting trends. The main problem seems to be that pressures to lower fertility are occurring independently of a change in underlying son preferences and falls in fertility are being aided by technologies which allow one to manip ulate not just the sex composition of living children, but also that of chi ldren as yet unborn. Some policy implications of this last situation are di scussed.