Hundred years of juvenile masculinity in India: why the contemporary pattern is important?

Suddhasil Siddhanta, United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)
Debasish Nandy, University of Kalyani

Since the beginning of the last century, sex ratio (male to female) in India is showing disturbing patterns with relatively fewer numbers of females compared to males. The magnitude of juvenile masculinity has increased since 1980s with no sign of reverse. The time trend of juvenile sex ratio brings out demographic transition type ‘sex ratio transition’ in the Indian population. Using data from the last hundred years, the paper tries to figure out the pattern of sex ratio transition for all of India as well as at the state level. Spatial patterns of juvenile sex ratio have been judged and contemporary increases in juvenile masculinity have been highlighted. Despite the common wisdom that the juvenile sex ratio in India is rising since the last century, the present paper indicates that juvenile masculinity is a long-standing problem of India that gets momentum during the recent period due to demographic as well as socio-economic forces.