well-known feature of demographic trends in several East and South Asian countries is the continuing decline in the proportion of females to males, which is evocatively captured in the phrase ‘missing’ women as coined by Sen (1990).1 In contrast to the female-male population ratio in Europe and the United States which is about one, and the sex ratio at birth which typically lies between 944 and 962 females per 1000 males, unusually low female-male population and sex ratios at birth have been recorded in Bangladesh, China, India, Nepal, Pakistan and South Korea (United Nations 2004)