Missing women in India: Gender-specific effects of early-life rainfall shocks

We link over a century of monthly precipitation data (1911-2011) to the population by gender and age at the district level in the 1991, 2001, and 2011 Indian censuses to study how early-life (around birth year) rainfall shocks affect cohorts' population sex ratios. Using an approach (from Bhalme and Mooley 1980) that generates separate indices for excess (wet) as well as negative (dry) rainfall shocks and adjusts for the level of persistence in monthly shocks, we find that both too much and too little rainfall are associated with lower relative female population. The results are robust to using alternative rainfall shock indices and different sets of fixed effects. We estimate about 1.156 million missing women due to differential effects of early-life rainfall shocks, which is about 3.01% of the total estimate of 38.46 million missing women (average over 1990, 2000 and 2010) from Bongaarts and Guilmoto (2015). Our results suggest the need for targeting aid for weather shocks towards girls, especially in regions with indicators suggesting stronger male preference. (c) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.