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REVIEWS

The Human Dichotomy, the changing numbers of males and females

by John Clarke, published 2000 hardbound, ISBN 0-08-043782-6. Price 150 Dutch guilders (around 㿗). 160 pages.

Reviewed by Ludi Simpson

Each person's sex - male or female - is with few exceptions determined biologically. But the number of males compared to females has much to do with the way civilisation creates differences between males and females. This book therefore addresses social gender as much as biological sex.

Even the accurate measurement of sex ratios is socially determined, whether affected by a loss of men as in many western censuses, or of women in the 13th Century English poll tax or in modern Indian Censuses. In India the issue is such that the sex ratio is measured as females per 100 males rather than the other way about as common elsewhere.

We often act as if sex ratios are stable and predictable. Before results from the recent census are released, they will be checked for unexpected sex ratios that may highlight groups of male residents missed from the count. It was similarly an examination of sex ratios of children in school in Bradford that gave rise to an estimate in the 1980s of 500 girls from Muslim families kept from schools, which were then insensitive to parental concerns about dress in PE and conduct between sexes after puberty.

And indeed within any stable social setting, sex ratios are stable over time and predictable at each age. There are usually more boys born than girls and the sex ratio generally changes at older ages in favour of women, due to higher mortality.

But these are generalisations. John Clarke's long experience of the demography of developing countries, and his steady grasp of population statistics in general, emphasise on page after page the ways in which changing social structures alter sex ratios. He addresses the likely biological determinants of sex ratios but highlights with copious examples how variation in sex ratios is usually the results of social gender roles. Expectations valid in one country cannot be transferred to other countries. A future of controlled fertility and rapidly changing roles of women make projections of sex ratios highly conjectural.

While the world population has 2% more men than women, there are 7% less men than women in Europe and 5% more women than men in Asia. Extreme variations are linked to migration, from the male dominated gold-rush towns, to the coastal resorts of Britain with their excess of often-widowed older women. Variations unrelated to migration are no less socially determined.

"Deep-rooted son preference, the widespread occurrence of abortion as a means of family limitation, and the recent introduction of the technology of sex determination [ultrasound machines are now mass-produced in China, India and South Korea]... have led to a surge in sex-selective abortions," in spite of government measures to the contrary and the lesser impact of sex-selective abortions in cities. These countries have sex ratios at birth over 110 males per 100 females compared to the more usual 104-108.

It is good news to have clear labelling of 'the scourge of maternal mortality and the scandal of female neglect', which lead to much higher female mortality than necessary, within a professionally tightly written book. The author leaves one in no doubt that the structures of family, health, housing and employment have a determining effect on demographic experience, and gives impelling support for gender equality.

After a survey of sex ratios worldwide, the author devotes chapters to the contribution to changing sex ratios of fertility, mortality and mobility. The structure works well, providing a refreshing reader on demographic concepts while telling its intriguing story. I would never attempt to read a somewhat technical book cover to cover, but this one's clear language and story enticed me to do just that. I recommend it, and suggest you order it from the library.

Ludi Simpson

Postscript: a Cuban sex-ratio mystery resolved

John Clarke quotes United Nations 1995 figures for Cuba at 115 boy live births per 100 girls, the only such extreme rate outside China, India, and South Korea. Feeling that the culture and economy of Cuba are unlikely to lead to sex preferential abortion in significant numbers, I asked the Cuban National Statistics Office and received this explanation from Enrique Gonzalez (my literal translation of his whole email).

"In fact, in the year 1995 the sex ratio at birth rose to 115.3 males per 100 females, but already before, since the beginning of the 1990s, it was tending to rise, and peaked in 1996 with a value of 118.0. It motivated an inquiry the length of our national network and we discovered the explanation in a change in the framework by which the primary information was collected.

As you must know, en 1990 the country entered an acute crisis due to the fall of the socialist camp and the strengthening of the blockade on the part of the government of the United States. That produced severe financial and material restrictions which made themselves felt in every sector of society.

The birth statistics had been recorded directly on a copy of the birth certificate which is completed in hospital, where 99.9% of all births take place. This certificate, original and copy, were a single item of two sheets with carbon paper between, such that the marks made on the original were repeated exactly in the same place on the copy. From 1990 it was not possible to import more paper of this type and the original and copy were printed separately, which is still the case today.

Now the registrar in the hospital who completed the form had to be very careful to locate one sheet above the other with carbon paper between and whatever small deviation resulted in a movement of the mark on the copy.

The boxes that indicate the sex were under each other, as follows:

Any movement in the original form relative to the copy could mean that the mark was made out of place and in these cases the person who entered the information on computer tended to enter the code 1 which appears first.

This has been the subject of analysis in meetings with staff in our regional offices and in the Public Health Ministry's registration system, and the situation has been improving slowly, although it is still not resolved totally since for the year 2000 the indicator took the value of 108.2.

As you can appreciate, it is not suggested that in Cuba, as in China or India, there is a practice of sex selection, but a temporary problem of quality of information which we are improving and is now practically at an acceptable level.

With cordial greetings,

Enrique González Jefe de Departamento de Estudios de Población, Centro de Estudios de Población y Desarollo, Oficina Nacional de Estadísticas

The Cuban annual health statistical abstract at www.sld.cu/instituciones/dne/index.htm confirms the time series of male births per 100 female births as follows, being around 104 during the 1980s: