印度约有2100万女孩是“多余的”

The desire among parents in India to have sons instead of daughters has created 21 million "unwanted" girls, a government report estimates.

印度政府报告预测，印度父母受重男轻女思潮的影响，2100万女孩成为“多余的”。

The finance ministry report found many couples kept on having children until they had a boy.

财政部报告发现，许多夫妇一直在生孩子，直到生下男孩为止。

Authors called this a "subtler form" of son preference than sex-selective abortions but warned it might lead to fewer resources for girls.

作者称这种形式的重男轻女比选择性别堕胎“更微妙”，但警告道这很可能会导致女孩数量减少。

Son preference was "a matter for Indian society to reflect upon", they said.

他们说，重男轻女是“印度社会需要反思的问题”。

The authors also found that 63 million women were "missing" from India’s population because the preference for sons led to to sex-selective abortions and more care was given to boys.

作者还发现，由于重男轻女的倾向造成选择性别堕胎，同时男孩会得到更多的照顾，印度人口中有6300万女性“失踪”。

Tests to determine a foetus’s sex are illegal in India, but they still take place and can lead to sex-selective abortions.

在印度，检测胎儿性别的测试是非法的，但仍会发生，这可能会造成选择性别堕胎。

Some cultural reasons for son preference were listed, including:

重男轻女的文化因素有:

Property passing on to sons, not daughters

财产留给儿子，而不是女儿。

Families of girls having to pay dowries to see their daughters married

女孩结婚需要给嫁妆。

Women moving to their husband’s house after getting married

结婚后女孩要搬到丈夫家。

The cultural preference for male children has even led one newspaper to list scientifically unfounded tips for conceiving boys, including facing west while sleeping, and having sex on certain days of the week.

在重男轻女思潮的影响下，一份报纸甚至列出了一些生男孩的建议，包括睡觉时朝西，一周中的某几天做爱，这些建议毫无科学依据。

The states most affected by son preference were Punjab and Haryana, while the least-affected was Meghalaya.

旁遮普和哈里亚纳邦受重男轻女思潮的影响最大，梅加拉亚邦受其影响最小。

In Punjab and Haryana states there were 1,200 boys under the age of seven for every 1,000 girls of the same age, the authors of the Economic Survey found.

经济调查发现，在旁遮普和哈里亚纳邦每1000个7岁以下的女孩中就有1200个同龄的男孩。