Missing Women and India’s Religious Demography

The authors use recent data from the
2006 National Family Health Survey of India to explore the
relationship between religion and demographic behavior. They
find that fertility and mortality vary not only between
religious groups, but also across caste groups. These groups
also differ with respect to socio-economic status. The
central finding of this paper is that despite their
socio-economic disadvantages, Muslims have higher fertility
than their Hindu counterparts and also exhibit lower levels
of infant mortality (particularly female infant mortality).
This effect is robust to the inclusion of controls for
non-religious factors such as socio-economic status and area
of residence. This result has important policy implications
because it suggests that India's problem of
"missing women" may be concentrated in particular
groups. The authors conclude that religion and caste play a
key role in determining the demographic characteristics of India.