Missing Women Estimation

Missing women estimation quantifies the number of women and girls who are absent from a population because of gender bias in mortality and, in some settings, sex-selective abortion. Introduced by economist Amartya Sen in 1990 and 1992, the method compares the observed female population (or female deaths) with the number expected under a benchmark sex ratio that would prevail absent discrimination. The resulting deficit — famously estimated at more than 100 million worldwide — is a stark demographic measure of cumulative anti-female bias.