Too few girls are storing up trouble for India and China

Twenty five years ago, the economist Amartya Sen drew attention to the one hundred million missing women worldwide caused by the neglect of girls and women that resulted in higher mortality rates for women than men.During the past two decades, increased economic development, coupled with a global focus on gender equality – particularly following the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing and the attention given to women’s issues in the Millennium Development Goals – has led to a reduction in excess female mortality throughout the world and effectively eliminated the gender bias in death rates.