Breaking down the question
The question has two parts — causes and solutions — for the low female sex-ratio in the so-called DEMARU states, an acronym coined by demographer Ashish Bose for Punjab, Haryana and neighbouring prosperous states where the daughter-eliminating mentality is strongest. Both halves must be answered, and the solutions should follow logically from the causes.
The paradox the examiner wants you to notice is that these are among India's richest and most agriculturally advanced states, yet they show the worst child sex ratios. This overturns any simple link between prosperity and gender equality and demands a sociological explanation rooted in patriarchy, land, dowry and technology. Our note on the components of population growth supplies the demographic frame.
How to approach it
Open by naming the paradox — wealth coexisting with a skewed sex ratio at birth — so the answer is framed sociologically from the start. Then set out the causes as a structured cluster: entrenched son preference and patrilineal inheritance, the dowry burden, the availability and misuse of sex-determination technology, small-family norms that intensify selection, and the low social value of daughters.
Mirror this in the solutions, moving from law enforcement to the deeper social change of raising the value of the girl child. Invoke Amartya Sen's missing women and Tulsi Patel on son preference. A short conclusion linking the sex ratio to patriarchy completes the answer.
Model answer
The DEMARU states — Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat — present a striking paradox: they are among India's most prosperous, yet record some of the lowest child sex ratios. This overturns the assumption that development brings gender equality and points to specifically social causes.
Causes.
Entrenched son preference and patriliny. These are strongly patrilineal and patrilocal societies in which sons inherit land, continue the lineage and support parents in old age, while daughters marry out. In an agrarian economy centred on landholding, a son is an economic and social asset and a daughter a liability — the root of a powerful son preference documented by Tulsi Patel.
The dowry burden. The spread of dowry, rising with prosperity, makes daughters costly. In wealthier households the expected dowry escalates, so affluence intensifies rather than relieves the incentive to avoid daughters.
Availability of technology. Prosperity brings ready access to ultrasound and sex-determination facilities. Sex-selective abortion converts the wish for a son into action, so wealth supplies both the motive and the means. This explains why the richest states show the worst ratios.
Small-family norm. As families limit their size, the determination to have at least one — preferably more than one — son within fewer births sharpens selection against girls. Fertility decline without a change in son preference worsens the sex ratio.
Low social value of the girl child. Underlying all these is a patriarchal devaluation of daughters, expressed in neglect of their nutrition, health and schooling as well as in outright elimination — the mechanism behind Amartya Sen's missing women.
Solutions.
Enforce the law. Rigorous implementation of the ban on prenatal sex determination, with monitoring of clinics and prosecution of violators, is essential to close off the technological route.
Attack dowry and secure daughters' inheritance. Effective action against dowry and the real enforcement of daughters' inheritance rights reduce the economic logic that makes sons preferable.
Raise the value of daughters. Girls' education, conditional support schemes and old-age security that does not depend on sons address the underlying devaluation; coercion alone cannot dislodge a cultural preference.
Change social attitudes. Sustained public campaigns, the involvement of community and religious leaders, and the visible success of educated, earning daughters can shift the norm over time.
The low female sex ratio in these prosperous states is thus a mirror of patriarchy, not of poverty. Lasting improvement depends less on law alone than on raising the social and economic value of the girl child so that daughters are wanted rather than eliminated.
Examiner's perspective
Examiners look for a candidate who seizes the paradox — prosperity coexisting with the worst sex ratios — and explains it sociologically through patriarchy, dowry, patriliny and technology, rather than offering a generic list of causes. Missing this paradox is the commonest weakness.
The stronger scripts answer both halves in matching structure, map solutions onto causes, and deploy Sen's missing women and Tulsi Patel on son preference to signal reading. A conclusion that frames the sex ratio as a mirror of patriarchy, written crisply in British spelling within ten-mark compass, secures the top band.