An estimated half million female fetuses are aborted annually by parents in India who are desperate for more economically beneficial boys, according to new research.

That translates into at least 10 million "missing girls" since ultrasounds and other sex-selection tests became available two decades ago -- a striking example of modern technology facilitating age-old prejudices.

"We conservatively estimate that prenatal sex determination and selective abortion accounts for 0.5 million missing girls yearly," said Dr. Prabhat Jha, director of the Centre for Global Health Research at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto and the lead author.

The study, published in today's edition of The Lancet, notes that while sex selection has been illegal in India since 1994, the practice is nonetheless widespread.

While there has long been anecdotal evidence that far more boys are being born than girls, the availability of health data in India is spotty, though census figures clearly show that the number of girls born has been declining steadily.

Dr. Jha and a team of Indian researchers derived data from a massive fertility and mortality survey since 1998 that included information from more than six million people. In the new paper, they looked specifically at 133,738 births. Researchers found that when a first child was a boy, the number of second children was equally split among girls and boys.

But if the first-born was a girl, the number of girls born subsequently fell off precipitously. Among second children, only 759 girls were born for every 1,000 boys, and among third children, there were 719 girls for every 1,000 boys.

Although anti-girl bias is usually associated with the rural poor, the study shows it is far more widespread among more well-to-do urban dwellers.

Households where the mother had a better education -- and presumably an income that would allow her family to afford testing -- were significantly less likely to give birth to a second daughter if their first child was a girl.

The study did not find differences among religious groups.

India's patriarchal society emphasizes the need for male heirs, and a son is considered an extra pair of hands to earn income for the family. Girls are viewed as economic and social burdens because they will eventually marry and leave home, taking a large dowry with them. An Indian maxim states: "Grooming a girl is like watering a neighbour's garden."

Dr. Shirish Sheth of Breach Candy hospital in Mumbai said the study shows that the old practice of neglecting and even killing girls has gone high-tech.

"Female infanticide of the past is refined and honed to a fine skill in this modern guise," he wrote in a commentary also published in The Lancet.

There are three principal means of sex selection. Chorionic villus sampling tests a bit of placenta, which can accurately predict gender at 10 weeks of gestation. Later in the pregnancy, there's the ultrasound, which uses sound waves to produce a sort of moving X-ray. Amniocentesis, an analysis of amniotic fluid, can do the same.

The new research also adds weight to a report published last year by the United Nations Population Fund, which warned that infanticide and abortion were driving India toward a gender imbalance with alarming social consequences.

China, Afghanistan, Nepal, Pakistan and South Korea face similar problems, the United Nations Population Fund said.

India's missing girls

The ratio of girls to boys in India had been falling steadily for decades, according to the country's decennial census. A new Canadian study suggests that at least 10 million female fetuses have been aborted over the last two decades.

Indian females born as a percentage of males born.

1981: 96.2%
1991: 94.5%
2001: 92.7%

Source: www.thelancet.com

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This article first appeared in The Globe and Mail, Monday 9, 2006.