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CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Nov 8, 2005 (UPI via COMTEX) -- A Harvard University study suggests the hepatitis B virus may be responsible for 40 percent of Asia's so-called "missing women."
Emily Oster, a graduate student in economics at Harvard, suggests excess female mortality, such as infanticide, may not be the only cause of uncommonly high male-to-female ratios in many Asian countries.
Several studies have suggested the imbalance reflects neglect of female children and poor conditions for women. They say as many as 100 million women are "missing" in Asia.
However Oster proposes an explanation for some of the observed over-representation of males in Asia: the hepatitis B virus. She presents evidence, consistent with existing scientific literature, that carriers of the hepatitis B virus are 1.5 times more likely to have a male child.
Oster concludes hepatitis B can account for about 45 percent of the "missing women" or, more specifically, for as many as 50 percent of the "missing women" in Egypt and West Asia; less than 20 percent in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Nepal; and around 75 percent of the "missing women" in China.
The study appears in the forthcoming issue of the Journal of Political Economy.
URL: www.upi.com Copyright 2005 by United Press International
