Indians abroad abort daughters, too: Study

Even as India wrestles with evidence that the richer its people become, the more likely they are to abort their daughters before they can be born, a new study suggests that the phenomenon is migrating with the country's emigrants to the West.

According to a new study conducted by a researcher at the University of California, Indian immigrants in the U.S. are using America's cutting-edge reproductive technologies and liberal abortion policies to ensure they have male children, reports the Indian Express. 

Though the sample size for the survey was small, only  65 immigrant Indian women in California, New Jersey and New York, the researchers found that the women used both in vitro fertilization and abortion to ensure that they did not have daughters. Of the women, 40% had terminated prior pregnancies when carrying a female; 89% who found out they were carrying a girl during the interview period, had an abortion.

Notably, using ultrasound to determine the sex of the fetus is illegal in India — though the law is widely flouted — while in America the practice is both legal and common.  Meanwhile, there are no regulations preventing the use of abortion or in vitro fertilization for gender selection.

According to the UC study, women identified female in-laws and husbands as sources of significant pressure to have male children. This was especially true when in-laws lived nearby, but also occurred if they remained in India, the paper said. 

The study participants immigrated after age 18 from the Indian states and territories of Punjab, Haryana, New Delhi, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.