Does a Legal Ban on Sex Selective Abortion Affect Differential Stopping Behavior in Couples?

Shreya Bhattacherjee, University of California, Riverside

This paper tries to see the impact evaluation of the Pre-Natal Diagnostics Techniques Act (PNDT) on the differential stopping behavior of couples in India. Differential stopping behavior is defined as a situation where the parents continue to bear children until they have a pre determined number of boys and then they stop. According to Basu (2009) this practice is primarily the result of an inherent son preference present in the minds of the people of India. Patel (2007) opines that this son preferring attitude is the main reason behind the increasing practice of female feticide. To curb this process Govt of India passed the PNDT Act in the state of Maharashtra in 1988 and the rest of the country in 1994. I construct a natural experiment using the time frame of the placement of this Act and use the DID method to carry out the proposed impact evaluation study.