Dr. Amartya Sen's More Than 100 Million Women Are Missing?

In December of 1990, Noble-Prize winning economist, Dr. Amartya Sen wrote a ground –breaking article in the New York Review of Books entitled “More Than 100 Million Women Are Missing,” in which he summarized and publicized his thesis, that world –wide and especially in Asia, women are very neglected and decimated before birth, which reflect in the population’s total. He compared the ratios of women to men in Europe (1.06) and North America (1.05) with those in South Asia, West Asia and China (0.94) and argued that the lower rates in Asia were due to excessive female mortality (Sen). Female mortality is excessive because considerable research has shown that if men and women receive similar nutrition, medical attention

“In South Asia, West Asia and China, the ratio of women to men can be as low as 0.94 or even lower” this is due to a direct result of discrimination that derived from cultural and economic reasons. He discussed this issue both as an economist and an intellectual scholar. Moreover, Sen spoke about the benefit and importance of gainful employment. Women need to feel and know that they are contributing to the betterment of their family not only by being a stay home mother, but by actively taking part in employment outside the home. Being able to work would offer women the economic freedom, independence and power to contribute to division making in the family. Sen states, in his article that, this shift “will greatly influence what are implicitly accepted as women’s” rights. Within the same context, ownership of assets in terms of their impact on “cooperative conflicts” within the family is another way women voice can be heard. Allowing women to own lands and having their names be listed jointly or as owners of property will shift the scale in favor of equal footing among