The Elderly Missing Women Phenomenon

Sehar Ezdi

Lataukset:

Universität Vechta

This research examines the elderly missing women phenomenon – masculinized sex

ratios in the elderly population from a fourfold approach. First, it systematizes the

causal factors responsible for missing women according to different stages of the

female life course (before/at birth, childhood, young adulthood, adulthood and old age)

to reveal an elderly missing women phenomenon. This categorization emphasizes that

the majority of literature to date has focused on the first two stages while neglecting the

cumulative impact of factors affecting missing women at later stages and especially old

age. Second, it evaluates the elderly missing women phenomenon in all countries across

Asia. It shows that while the missing women phenomenon is well researched in specific

countries of East/Southeast Asia and South Asia, it is mostly ignored in the Middle

Eastern region of Western Asia where the extent of the female deficit is worse. Further,

even in the former regions the issue is mostly addressed at young ages. In light of the

rapid ageing of Asia, this points to the necessity of changing the geographical focus of

literature on missing women from younger to older age groups in East/Southeast and

South Asia and place a greater emphasis on the Middle Eastern region as a whole.

Third, using Pakistan as a case study, it considers whether the elderly missing women

phenomenon observable in the elderly populations of some Asian countries may be the

result of a second set of possible group effects, namely demographic shocks. An

evaluation of conflicts and natural disasters throughout the history of Pakistan,

however, reveals that the first set of group effects (i.e. factors across the life course)

need to be given greater weightage in explaining the phenomenon. Finally, it examines

the empirical strength of the factors, forces and exogenous shocks responsible for

missing women by assigning variables to these causal mechanisms and testing their

strength at the cross national level. The results reveal that, when evaluated in an

ordinary least squares framework, the number of variables that are significant increases

when the elderly population versus the total population is used as the dependent

variable. This shows that the true severity of the missing women phenomenon only

becomes evident when evaluating the elderly missing women phenomenon because the

latter considers the consequences of a female deficit from all life stages. By analyzing

the elderly missing women phenomenon in this manner, this research shows that the life

course perspective is the ideal framework to analyze the missing women phenomenon

in general and the elderly missing women phenomenon in particular.