In India, the birth of a son is often an occasion for celebration and family pride while the birth of a daughter can be a time of embarrassment and even mourning.
The reason is that parents with daughters often need to take on immense debts to pay for marriage dowries. Other factors such as poor nutrition, lack of medical care, and general neglect of female children also contributed to creating the imbalance. The report also noted that increasing wealth does not mean an end to male preferences among Indian families.
