The 2005 "mini-census" reported that the sex ratio at birth, expressed as the number of boys per 100 girls, was 119--when the global average was somewhere between 103 to 106.

FORBES

The other reason specific to a few Asian societies is because a combination of traditional preference for sons and the availability of sex-selective abortion skewed the sex ratio at birth 20 years ago, leaving too few native-born women now.

ECONOMIST: International marriage

The figures are not strictly comparable, because sample surveys show the sex ratio at birth, whereas the census gives it among infants up to the age of six.

ECONOMIST: India's skewed sex ratio: Seven brothers | The

The sex ratio of 15-year-olds in 2005 was not far from the sex ratio at birth in 1990.

ECONOMIST: Gendercide

On the basis of the national sample surveys (NSS), they calculate that India's sex ratio at birth swung from 924 females per 1, 000 males in 2004-05 to 977 in 2011, a stunning turnaround in favour of girls.

ECONOMIST: Banyan

One of the few to have succeeded in ending the practice is South Korea, where the sex ratio at birth peaked in 1990 and has since fallen to near-normal levels.

ECONOMIST: Banyan