The global female deficit was estimated to total 100 million in the 1990s, and by far the largest share of this deficit was in Asia (Sen 1990; Klasen and Wink 2002), currently the only continent with a majority of men (Table 6.1). China is not the only country responsible for this Asian particularity, however. A male surplus also exists in several neighbouring countries, including India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Together with China, these countries, which are home to around 3 billion of the world’s population of 7 billion, reported an estimated female deficit of 89.3 million in the early 2000s: 40.9 million in China, 39.1 million in India, 4.9 million in Pakistan and 3.7 million in Bangladesh (Klasen and Wink 2002). As in China, the female deficit in those Asian countries results from discriminatory practices (the elimination of girls by sex-selective abortion and/or excess female mortality in childhood and adulthood), which can be interpreted as a manifestation of patriarchal societies in a period of economic modernization.