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Comment by tibbon | Hacker News Reader

What creates this imbalance? Don't more men die from accidents, and there's a slightly lower (like 0.5%) number of male people born? Is there some part of the country with far more women?

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Older men date younger women, so particularly at younger age brackets you find more single men than women.

you imply that they date/marry multiple women, or else the math doesnt work out

No, there are a bunch of old single women to balance the young single men.

Access to abortion creates the imbalance. Indian women are much more likely to terminate pregnancy when they are expecting a girl.

Women not having equal rights and opportunities is what creates the incentive to terminate pregnancies when expecting a girl.

According to the article, it's the cultural expectation that the bride's family pays for the wedding etc.

That would fall under not having equal rights or opportunities.

They are separate. You can have the same rights and opportunities and have cultural expections. Paying for marriage is not required, but something the families choose to do. The woman has every right not to participate in that and must consent to the marriage for it to take place.

Not disagreeing with you about equality, but in many other areas it's on the groom, yet I don't think any pregnant lady would think, "Shit my baby is boy/girl. I don't want to pay for his/her wedding. Better abort now."

The dowry equivalents and what not can cost as much as a house

So it's not access to abortion creating the imbalance then. It's Indian women's preference for male children.

Naturally more males are born, something like 5%. Combined with India having a history of aborting female babies

> and there's a slightly lower (like 0.5%) number of male people born?

What region are you talking about? At least globally, there seem to be more men born than women.[1] Also seems to hold for the US[2].

[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/Global_P...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USA_Population_Pyramid.sv...

I had always heard there were more women, but I stand corrected! Thank you!

West Coast imbalance is due to industries (tech, military, planes etc.). India probably because families didn't want daughters.

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