Monografiaväitöskirja (G4)
The Elderly Missing Women Phenomenon
Julkaisun tekijät: Sehar Ezdi
Kustantaja: Universität Vechta
Paikka: Vechta, Germany
Julkaisuvuosi: 2017
This research examines the elderly missing women phenomenon – masculinized sex
ratios in the elderly population from a fourfold approach. First, it systematizes the
causal factors responsible for missing women according to different stages of the
female life course (before/at birth, childhood, young adulthood, adulthood and old age)
to reveal an elderly missing women phenomenon. This categorization emphasizes that
the majority of literature to date has focused on the first two stages while neglecting the
cumulative impact of factors affecting missing women at later stages and especially old
age. Second, it evaluates the elderly missing women phenomenon in all countries across
Asia. It shows that while the missing women phenomenon is well researched in specific
countries of East/Southeast Asia and South Asia, it is mostly ignored in the Middle
Eastern region of Western Asia where the extent of the female deficit is worse. Further,
even in the former regions the issue is mostly addressed at young ages. In light of the
rapid ageing of Asia, this points to the necessity of changing the geographical focus of
literature on missing women from younger to older age groups in East/Southeast and
South Asia and place a greater emphasis on the Middle Eastern region as a whole.
Third, using Pakistan as a case study, it considers whether the elderly missing women
phenomenon observable in the elderly populations of some Asian countries may be the
result of a second set of possible group effects, namely demographic shocks. An
evaluation of conflicts and natural disasters throughout the history of Pakistan,
however, reveals that the first set of group effects (i.e. factors across the life course)
need to be given greater weightage in explaining the phenomenon. Finally, it examines
the empirical strength of the factors, forces and exogenous shocks responsible for
missing women by assigning variables to these causal mechanisms and testing their
strength at the cross national level. The results reveal that, when evaluated in an
ordinary least squares framework, the number of variables that are significant increases
when the elderly population versus the total population is used as the dependent
variable. This shows that the true severity of the missing women phenomenon only
becomes evident when evaluating the elderly missing women phenomenon because the
latter considers the consequences of a female deficit from all life stages. By analyzing
the elderly missing women phenomenon in this manner, this research shows that the life
course perspective is the ideal framework to analyze the missing women phenomenon
in general and the elderly missing women phenomenon in particular.
Ladattava julkaisu This is an electronic reprint of the original article. |