India Will Pay Families for Daughters

Incentives for raising girls aim to correct skewed sex ratio
By Nick McMaster,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 4, 2008 2:10 PM CST

India: Love for boys and hate for the baby girls
(LongLivePakistan (YouTube))

India will start handing out cash to families in return for raising daughters, reports AFP. The culture's preference for sons results in sex-selection abortions, which are illegal but have skewed the country's sex ratio. Poor families with girls in states with the worst sex ratios will receive a series of payments, with a bonus should the child reach 18 unmarried and having finished her education.

"This will force the families to look upon the girl as an asset rather than a liability," said the government minister overseeing the initiative. India has 927 females per 1,000 males, drastically below the world average of 1,050 females. Some families see daughters as a financial liability because they must supply a dowry when the girls marry. As a result, the illegal aborting of female fetuses has become a robust industry. (More abortion stories.)

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