Narzary Pralip Kumar, Sharma Shilpi Mishra
Post-Graduate Department of Population Studies, Fakir Mohan University, Nuapadhi, Balasore 756 020, Odisha, India.
J Health Popul Nutr. 2013 Jun;31(2):278-89. doi: 10.3329/jhpn.v31i2.16393.
Although son preference in patrilineal society is an established fact, daughter preference in matrilineal society is not thoroughly examined. Very few studies have been carried out on the issue. This paper attempts to explore the daughter preference and contraceptive-use in matrilineal tribal societies in Meghalaya, India. Data from the National Family Health Survey 1998-1999 have been used in this study because, among the large-scale surveys, only this dataset allows identification of matrilineal sample. Mean, percentage, and standard deviation are computed in the present study. Further, the data have been cross-tabulated, and logistic regression has been run through SPSS (version 15). Among the ever-married matrilineal women, 17% desired more sons than daughters but 18.2% desired more daughters than sons. About 11% of ever-married women could achieve their desired sex composition of children. However, a very striking finding suggests that, even after achieving desired sex composition of children, as high as 61.8% of women were still not using contraception mainly because of programme factors while one-fourth were still depending on temporary methods. The rest 13.2% adopted terminal method of contraception, which calls for immediate attention of planners. With the increase in the number of sons but without daughter, contraceptive-use drastically decreased. The most desired sex composition of children seems to be two daughters and a son. Absence of daughter with increase in the total number of sons increased the desire for additional children. Every woman with two or more sons but without daughter wanted the next child to be a daughter. Thus, there are ample evidences to draw the conclusion that there is, in fact, a daughter preference in the matrilineal tribal societies in Meghalaya, India. Policy-makers may, thus, target the women who have achieved fertility and should ensure that daughter preference does not lead to the negligence to sons.
虽然父系社会中的重男轻女现象是既定事实，但母系社会中的重女轻男现象却未得到充分研究。针对这一问题开展的研究极少。本文试图探讨印度梅加拉亚邦母系部落社会中的重女轻男现象及避孕措施的使用情况。本研究使用了1998 - 1999年全国家庭健康调查的数据，因为在大规模调查中，只有这个数据集能够识别出母系样本。本研究计算了均值、百分比和标准差。此外，对数据进行了交叉制表，并通过SPSS（版本15）进行了逻辑回归分析。在已婚的母系女性中，17%希望生育的儿子多于女儿，但18.2%希望生育的女儿多于儿子。约11%的已婚女性能够实现她们期望的子女性别构成。然而，一个非常显著的发现表明，即使在实现了期望的子女性别构成之后，仍有高达61.8%的女性未采取避孕措施，主要是因为项目因素，而四分之一的女性仍依赖临时避孕方法。其余13.2%采用了绝育避孕方法，这需要规划者立即关注。随着儿子数量的增加而没有女儿，避孕措施的使用大幅减少。最期望的子女性别构成似乎是两个女儿和一个儿子。儿子总数增加但没有女儿会增加生育更多孩子的愿望。每个有两个或更多儿子但没有女儿的女性都希望下一个孩子是女儿。因此，有充分证据得出结论，事实上，印度梅加拉亚邦的母系部落社会存在重女轻男现象。政策制定者因此可以将目标对准已经实现生育的女性，并应确保重女轻男现象不会导致对儿子的忽视。
