‘Almost certainly points to human intervention’: Migrant mothers giving birth to more boys than girls

Researchers analysed over two million births in Australia across a 20-year period. What they found exposed a disturbing trend in certain families.

Immigrant mothers from China and India are giving birth to more sons than daughters, new research has found, sparking concern among experts about sex-selective abortion in Australia.

The study, conducted by Edith Cowan University researchers and published in the Global Public Health journal, “almost certainly points to” women from countries where higher value is placed upon having a boy, terminating a girl after discovering the gender through blood tests in early pregnancy.

“Indian and Chinese mothers had much higher induced abortion rates in early pregnancy than their Australian counterparts, which coincided with the introduction of non-invasive prenatal testing,” the researchers wrote of their findings.

“This study provides the most compelling observational evidence to date of male-biased sex ratio at birth among overseas-born mothers, which appears to be attributed to prenatal sex determination followed by selective abortion of females.”

The research was based on an analysis of 2.1 million births in NSW and Western Australia between 1994 and 2015. It found Australian-born mothers had children within the expected natural range of 105 boys for every 100 girls.

For Chinese-born mothers, however, 133 boys were born for every 100 girls, and to Indian-born mothers, 132 boys for every 100 girls. There were 115 boys for every 100 girls born to British-born mothers.

Immigrant mothers from China and India are giving birth to more sons than daughters, new research has found.

Chinese-born mothers were also nine per cent more likely than those from other migrant communities to stop having children once they’d had a son.

“It is crucial to examine how these practices may influence SRB (sex ratio at birth) trends, particularly in multicultural settings like Australia, where immigrants from countries with historically skewed SRB may maintain son preference and practice prenatal sex selection in their new countries of settlement,” the researchers said.

“Australia is a multicultural country with a sizeable immigrant population from Asia and other regions with a strong culture of son preference. It is plausible that such cultural preference combined with accessibility to NIPT (non-invasive prenatal testing) services may explain the unbalanced SRB.”

Sex selection using IVF – apart from exemptions to avoid gender-specific diseases – is banned in Australia. As a result, the researchers said it was most likely migrant women who were aborting girls.

Perinatal epidemiologist and lead researcher Amanuel Gebremedhin said that the “markedly skewed sex ratio at birth among certain migrant communities almost certainly points to human intervention”.

“Oftentimes, parents are able to determine the gender of the baby as early as 10 weeks of gestation,” Dr Gebremedhin told The Australian.

“Given that abortion on request in many Australian jurisdictions is generally available up to 22-24 weeks of gestation, it allows parents time to consider whether they would maintain the pregnancy.”

‘Oftentimes, parents are able to determine the gender of the baby as early as 10 weeks of gestation.’

The Edith Cowan study is the latest to indicate an increase in male-biased SRB among Asian migrants in high-income Western countries like the US, Canada, the UK and Australia.

In 2015, the SBS commissioned data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) that showed an average of 108.2 boys were born for every 100 girls to Indian-born parents, and 109.5 boys were born for every 100 girls to China-born parents.

Demographer Dr Christophe Guilmoto – who co-authored a 2012 United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) report on sex selection in Asia – said the figures suggested that the practice was occurring here.

“I think there is no other explanation,” Dr Guilmoto told the SBS at the time.

“Once we have run statistical test on this data and they should that the gap between the sex ratio at birth among these two communities and the rest of the population is not random, then we know there is something.

“There are very few ways to influence the sex of your child so the most common is to resort to sex-selective abortion.”

The findings demonstrate a need for a discussion about the ‘consequences of male-based sex-selective practices’.

Dr Gebremedhin said the findings demonstrate a need for a discussion about the “consequences of male-based sex-selective practices”, noting it could reinforce gender inequality and put pressure on women only to have sons.

Studies by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and United Nations (UN) has similarly found that in parts of the world where male-biased sex-selection is a problem, the drivers are deeply entrenched social, economic, cultural and political factors that see women discriminated against in all facets of their lives.

“While maintaining rights of bodily autonomy, sex-selective abortion should be discouraged, as it undermines broader commitments to gender equality and non-discrimination,” Dr Gebremedhin said.

The WHO and UN previously warned against imposing restrictions on access to abortion for sex-selective reasons because it was more likely to have harmful impacts on women and “may put their health and lives in jeopardy”.

Despite any skewing of the sex of babies born to Chinese or Indian migrants, The Demographics Group co-founder and director Simon Kuestenmacher said Australia’s genders would likely stay in balance.

“This will not lead to an overly male Australia because 70 per cent of population growth comes from direct migration, and we still take in more women than men through skilled immigration, international students and backpackers,” Mr Kuestenmacher said.

Originally published as ‘Almost certainly points to human intervention’: Migrant mothers giving birth to more boys than girls