As sex ratios have risen in China over the past 25 years, uncertainty has persisted about
the proximate mechanisms producing the rise. Sex-selective abortion, girls alive but
hidden in the population, and sex-selective infanticide have all been advanced as
explanations, but the precise mix of these mechanisms is not known. Convincing
explanations are elusive because the behaviors involved are unobserved, performed out of
view in family homes or quietly in clinics, and omitted from reports by local officials.
The instrumentalities that produce the female deficit are important because they delimit
policy choices. For example, efforts to curb the rise in sex ratios by outlawing sexselective
abortion will be ineffective and counter-productive if infanticide is a readily
available substitute.
Given the sensitive nature of the problem, no single source of data can produce a
complete or credible picture. This study triangulates the problem using a combination of
data sources from one peripheral rural county in eastern Yunnan Province, a county with
unusually high child sex ratios. The data sources include qualitative research materials
collected in 1993 and 1994 in the form of interviews with local officials, health workers,
and citizens; local documentary evidence; data from a county-wide probability sample of
women (N=1,062) who bore children in the years 1991-93; and county census tabulations
from 1990 and 2000.