Prosperity may not ensure equality for girls in Indian families.

Published in The South Asian Times.
Can prosperity bring equality for girls in Indian families? According to prevalent belief improvement in living condition provides less chances of discrimination against girls. However, this belief is contradicted in recent surveys that showed that girls in prosperous Indian families often don't enjoy equal status as boys.
Discrimination against girls in prosperous Indian families in India were discovered by a social anthropologist, Monica Das Gupta, who was quoted in an article published in the magazine section of New York Times. Das Gupta concluded in her research that bias against girls among educated and independent minded women in the rich state of Haryana in India was more pronounced than in poorer region.
Haryana and Punjab have highest percentage of missing girls who were aborted and killed as new-born or died in their first few years from neglect.
To make the matter worse, researchers in USA concluded that the trend of strong preference for baby boys were found among Asian Americans born and raised in the U.S. Joyce Moy, executive director of the Asian American/Asian Research Institute of the City University of New York was quoted in a recent newspaper article as saying that some family values, including preference for male child, prevalent in China, Korea and India have seeped into American culture among even young immigrants, despite the fact that historic reasons for the male preference are less relevant in the U.S.
“Development offers new opportunities to discriminate against girls”, claimed the article in the New York Times Magazine, “Development brings immense and valuable cultural change, much of it swiftly, but it doesn't necessarily change all aspects of a culture at the same rate”, said the author of the article, Tina Rosenberg.
The article broadly referred to findings done by Das Gupta. She commented that the cultural preference for boys are getting stronger in prosperous families. Higher education and income levels generate more resources. “If people are very poor, boys and girls are deprived equally. But as parents gain to tools to help their children survive and thrive they allocate advantages like doctor visits to boys and first born girls, leaving subsequent daughters behind”, commented the article inferring that in North India first born girls were less discriminated than second of third born girls.
Research showed that wealthier and more educated women face this same imperative to have boys as uneducated poor woman. “If birth of a girl in a poor family is disappointment , it is a tragedy for rich family to have a girl.”
It can be pointed out that development seemed to have failed to help Indian girls. In India, more than 1.5 million fewer girls are born each year than predicted. More girls die before the age of five.
Having more money, a better education and belonging to higher caste; all of these raise the probability that a family will discriminate against its daughters. While increasing women's decision making power would reduce discrimination against girls in some parts it would make thins worse in north and west of India.
When women's power is increased they use it to favor boys.
In an another article published in the Times, reference were made to comments by the Nobel Prize winner Indian economist Amartya Sen, who once commented that more than 100 million women are missing. Sen pointed out, “Women live longer than men, so there are more females than males in much of the world. India has 108 females for every 100 while China has 107. As an implication 107 million females are missing from the globe today.” By comparison, the U.S. is closer to average: 105 boys for every 100 girls this year.
It's one thing to wish for a boy or a girl when pregnant; but it's something else entirely to take steps to guarantee your wish comes true. In China and India the ratio of boys to girls is so lopsided that economists project there may be as many as 30 to 40 million more men than women of marriageable age in both countries by 2020. The growing imbalance slows in older age because women tend to outlive men, with the ratio in both countries falling to about 106 men per 100 women after age 60. But such figures are cold comfort for younger men who lack marriage prospects in their age groups.
New York Times journalist-activist Nicholas Kristof commented in his article, 'Girls vanish because they don't get the same health care and food as boys. In India they are less likely to be vaccinated than boys and are taken to hospital only when they are sicker. The girls in India from 1 to 5 years of age are 50 percent more likely to die than boys of their age. Ultrasound machines have allowed a pregnant woman to find out the sex of her fetus and get an abortion if it is female. More girls are missing because they are female than men are killed on the battle field in all the wars of the 20th century'.