Abstract
The term “missing women” refers to the deficit of women, primarily in Asia and Northern Africa which arises from the difference in treatment received by both sexes before and after birth (Sen 1990). Pakistan is one of the those countries where the issue of gender imbalance has not been studied in much detail. This paper uses data from three rounds of demographic and health surveys (DHS) to study the trend of sex ratios at birth as well as early childhood years. The latest round of DHS (2013) shows that the sex ratios at birth have become less skewed from 113.1 to 102.5. The study analyses the reasons responsible for this change. Have the sex ratios improved in reality or is it merely because of an improvement in reporting of female births? The paper then describes and analyses the causes and main reasons responsible for skewed sex ratios. Lastly, comparisons are made with the neighboring countries (China and India) who are already experiencing the same issue but at a higher magnitude, in order to study the policy recommendations to combat the issue of gender imbalance.
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