“Asia's Missing Women” as a Problem in Applied Evolutionary Psychology?

In many parts of Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, women and children are so undervalued, neglected, abused, and so often killed, that sex ratios are now strongly male biased. In recent decades, sex-biased abortion has exacerbated the problem. In this article I highlight several important insi...

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Main Author: Robert Brooks
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: SAGE Publishing 2012-12-01
Series:Evolutionary Psychology
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1177/147470491201000512
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spelling doaj-16c020dddb3c4c3380dd00d6225817a62020-11-25T03:33:53ZengSAGE PublishingEvolutionary Psychology1474-70492012-12-011010.1177/14747049120100051210.1177_147470491201000512“Asia's Missing Women” as a Problem in Applied Evolutionary Psychology?Robert BrooksIn many parts of Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, women and children are so undervalued, neglected, abused, and so often killed, that sex ratios are now strongly male biased. In recent decades, sex-biased abortion has exacerbated the problem. In this article I highlight several important insights from evolutionary biology into both the origin and the severe societal consequences of “Asia's missing women”, paying particular attention to interactions between evolution, economics and culture. Son preferences and associated cultural practices like patrilineal inheritance, patrilocality and the Indian Hindu dowry system arise among the wealthy and powerful elites for reasons consistent with models of sex-biased parental investment. Those practices then spread via imitation as technology gets cheaper and economic development allows the middle class to grow rapidly. I will consider evidence from India, China and elsewhere that grossly male-biased sex ratios lead to increased crime, violence, local warfare, political instability, drug abuse, prostitution and trafficking of women. The problem of Asia's missing women presents a challenge for applied evolutionary psychology to help us understand and ameliorate sex ratio biases and their most severe consequences.https://doi.org/10.1177/147470491201000512
collection DOAJ
language English
format Article
sources DOAJ
author Robert Brooks
spellingShingle Robert Brooks
“Asia's Missing Women” as a Problem in Applied Evolutionary Psychology?
Evolutionary Psychology
author_facet Robert Brooks
author_sort Robert Brooks
title “Asia's Missing Women” as a Problem in Applied Evolutionary Psychology?
title_short “Asia's Missing Women” as a Problem in Applied Evolutionary Psychology?
title_full “Asia's Missing Women” as a Problem in Applied Evolutionary Psychology?
title_fullStr “Asia's Missing Women” as a Problem in Applied Evolutionary Psychology?
title_full_unstemmed “Asia's Missing Women” as a Problem in Applied Evolutionary Psychology?
title_sort “asia's missing women” as a problem in applied evolutionary psychology?
publisher SAGE Publishing
series Evolutionary Psychology
issn 1474-7049
publishDate 2012-12-01
description In many parts of Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, women and children are so undervalued, neglected, abused, and so often killed, that sex ratios are now strongly male biased. In recent decades, sex-biased abortion has exacerbated the problem. In this article I highlight several important insights from evolutionary biology into both the origin and the severe societal consequences of “Asia's missing women”, paying particular attention to interactions between evolution, economics and culture. Son preferences and associated cultural practices like patrilineal inheritance, patrilocality and the Indian Hindu dowry system arise among the wealthy and powerful elites for reasons consistent with models of sex-biased parental investment. Those practices then spread via imitation as technology gets cheaper and economic development allows the middle class to grow rapidly. I will consider evidence from India, China and elsewhere that grossly male-biased sex ratios lead to increased crime, violence, local warfare, political instability, drug abuse, prostitution and trafficking of women. The problem of Asia's missing women presents a challenge for applied evolutionary psychology to help us understand and ameliorate sex ratio biases and their most severe consequences.
url https://doi.org/10.1177/147470491201000512
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