Female Infanticide Essay Example

📌Category: Asia, Social Issues, World
📌Words: 543
📌Pages: 2
📌Published: 18 March 2021

Female infanticide is practiced primarily due to cultural and economic reasons, focusing mainly in India and China. Female Infanticide is the purposeful killing of newborn females, it is practiced worldwide and is still happening today. 

The reasons for killing newborn females are largely cultural; in some cultures predominantly chinese and indian cultures women are seen as inferior to men. This is one of the many reasons parents would rather have a male child than a female child. In chinese and indian cultures women are seen as the carers, cooks and homemakers as opposed to men who often hold up the family social status and economic solidity. Men are usually the ones who earn money for the family, they are more likely to be highered and often earn a higher pay than women who are working the same job. In India and China there is a large business in agriculture and males are noticeably stronger than females. This came as a huge advantage to families with males, as their son would work for them on the farm to help the family earn money. A girl would not be as useful on the farm as they do not have the same physical strength as men, instead they would be useful in cooking, cleaning and taking care of the family; however in these cultures men were valued for their ability to work and earn money.  Money for most families is valued and worked for, and females often drain the family resources considerably more than males. 

It is a proven fact that women cost more than men, it can be hard to support large families and since girls are more expensive and drain the family resources it is easier to kill a newborn girl rather than a boy who can work for the family and make more money. Eventually when women grow up they get married, in indian culture it is tradition that the bride's family gives the groom a dowry. A dowry is a large sum of money and valuable goods, which can be a large financial burden to families. For that reason some families kill their newborn girl as they will have to give a large dowry to the groom and they most likely will not get the dowry back. That being said if a woman died in the absence of sons her husband would need to pay back the dowry, which also reduces the value of the bride. As this was tradition there were also policies made which favoured male children instead of females. 

In China there was a government policy put in place to help the economic problem of over population.The policy put in place made it so families were only able to have one child. During this time families only wanted male babies, and there was strong motive to kill newborn females as well as a vast surge of female infanticide. Families wanted to have a male child to work for them as they have higher earning potential than females. With families only being allowed some families would have to hide a second child or in most cases kill their unwanted female babies.  

Female infanticide is practiced primarily due to cultural and economic reasons, focusing mainly in India and China. Newborn females are often killed due to status, ability to work, financial stress on families and policies put in place in certain areas of the world. It is for these reasons that female infanticide was and still is practiced in our modern society.

+
x
Remember! This is just a sample.

You can order a custom paper by our expert writers

Order now
By clicking “Receive Essay”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement. We will occasionally send you account related emails.