With the Russian invasion into the Ukraine,  Anna Minasyan’s forthcoming publication gives insight into parents' preference of having sons rather than daughters when facing a (possible) war. This preference is usually realized either through sex-selective abortions or by having children until a boy is born.

Minasyan explains: “Our findings are based on the case of a simmering conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region since the 1990s. The last full-blown war over this region was in November 2020. Based on the Armenian population census data from the 1989 to 2011 period, we find that Armenian communities that live closer to the conflict region, Nagorno Karabakh, have experienced an unnaturally high ratio of boys over girls under-5 years old in the period of intense ceasefire breaches relative to the regions that are further away. The natural sex ratio (male/female) at birth is around 105 per 1000 live births. While in Armenia it has been around 115 up until 2011, which is very high and comparable to the levels observed in China.”

“Missing girls” phenomenon

The infamous “missing girls” phenomenon, first discovered by the Nobel Prize Laureate Amartya Sen, is not just a longstanding problem observed in China and India but is also a major concern in other regions threatened by conflicts. Armenia is not the only country in Eastern Europe and South Caucasus with highly skewed sex ratios at birth and experience of recent conflict.

Minasyan’s research suggests that, besides Armenia, one of the reasons behind a rise in “missing girls” in countries like Albania, Azerbaijan, and Georgia can at least partly be explained by the unresolved conflicts between ethnic groups living either in the same or neighboring territories in these countries.

Gender inequity

The “missing girls” phenomenon is linked with a parental and societal preference for a male offspring, which is either realized by aborting the female fetus before their birth or by a stopping behavior, i.e. having children until a boy is born. This means that girls are likely to be born in larger families and due to son preference they are more likely to be neglected or treated unequally both within and outside of the household.

Unequal and gender-biased treatment before or after birth suggests that there are serious gender equity issues in such conflict-ridden societies. It is likely that due to internalized threat to group survival, which leads to a stronger preference for sons, women are not provided with a similar level of personal freedoms and economic opportunities as men. Achieving gender equity and peace is a priority for sustainable development and part of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) included in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by all United Nations Member States. Altogether, the 17 SDGs are an urgent call for action by all countries to end poverty and other deprivations with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, establish peace and spur economic growth – all while tackling climate change.

War versus natural disasters

Unlike what the researchers expected based on the previous research from the biological literature, the effects from fear of war on sex ratios at birth do not follow the same pattern as the effects from direct exposure to natural or man-made disasters. In the latter case, the biological literature predicts lower sex ratios at birth (more girls than boys being born). The contrasting effects imply that Minasyan’s research findings cannot be explained by biological or so-called evolutionary reproductive patterns but rather by the behavioral responses of individuals bounded by fears of their own groups' survival.

Personal interest

For Minasyan, the research has a personal interest. “Late Stephan Klasen, a former professor in Goettingen who wrote many papers on missing girls and who himself was supervised by Amartya Sen, one day asked me if I knew that in my home country, Armenia, more boys are born than girls. I was not surprised as I had heard about it and given my local knowledge, I suspected that the simmering conflict involving Armenians and the glorification of boys as defenders of the homeland may have to do with this issue, further anecdotal evidence from media articles and surveys also pointed towards that direction. Hence, I embarked on the journey to collect data and test the validity of my hypothesis, which was very much underexplored in the “missing girls” literature.”

Minasyan would like to continue her research. “With the news about the war in Ukraine, it can be important to investigate how the Russia-Ukraine conflict impacts preference for sons among the Ukrainians. Furthermore, one could also expand the research to other Eastern European countries where we observe “unnaturally” skewed sex ratios at birth.

Last but not least, I am contemplating a follow-up study for the case of Armenia and the last war episode in 2020, which killed more than 5000 soldiers. This may have had further consequences on the fertility rates and sex ratios at birth in the country.”

For more information, please contact Anna Minasyan (a.minasyan rug.nl). 

The relevant research paper is forthcoming in the Economic Development and Cultural Change and is available online here:  https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/716101