In the early morning glow of another womb scan, families across Asia are making decisions that echo far beyond the hospital corridors: whether the tiny life kicking on the screen should carry the chromosomes of a son or a daughter. The phenomenon of prenatal gender selection—and the shadow of female infanticide—has cast a long demographic and social footprint across countries such as China, India, South Korea, and beyond. According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), more than 140 million girls are “missing” globally as a result of sex-biased selective abortions, infanticide or neglect, and a very large proportion of these come from Asia.
In many Asian societies, the preference for sons is deeply rooted in economic, cultural and familial norms. Sons are expected to carry on the family name, provide for ageing parents, perform certain religious rites, inherit land. Daughters, in the eyes of some traditions, marry out of the family, become part of the husband’s household, and require costly dowries. Coupled with legal or de-facto limits on family size—such as that once imposed by China’s one-child policy—the result has been a potent mix: when a family is allowed only one or very few children, and they believe a son is essential, the inclination to abort a female foetus or neglect a daughter becomes tragically more likely.
In the Indo-Gangetic plains of India, the preference for sons has surfaced in skewed sex ratios and selective abortions for decades. Even though access to ultrasound for sex-determination is illegal in India, the phenomenon persists in some regions. China too saw a surge in male births: in some provinces, up to 130 boys were born for every 100 girls—a figure far above the biological norm of around 105 to 106. The demographic consequences are profound: hundreds of millions of boys now face the prospect of being “left-over men,” unable to find brides, contributing to increased human-trafficking risks, forced marriages, and a host of social tensions.
Yet, the picture is not uniform, and fascinatingly, in recent years a contrary phenomenon has emerged in parts of Asia: a growing preference for daughters, or at least a shift towards valuing female children more equally. In countries like Japan, for example, one survey found that among couples who plan to have only one child, 75 % would prefer a daughter.In South Korea, younger parents now regard having daughters as the more desirable configuration—two daughters are increasingly seen as ideal whereas two sons without any daughter are less so. These shifts reflect changing gender roles, declining fertility, more women in education and the workforce, and evolving expectations of parenthood.
In the larger cultural context of Southeast Asia, rapid urbanisation, migration to cities, and changing economic structures have begun to reshape the calculus of children. In agrarian communities, sons traditionally meant labour in the fields; in urban settings, daughters may mean more compelling educational investment or dual-income potential. And globally-connected younger generations often reject the old-school boy-preference logic. Several recent academic studies show that women’s own preferences for daughters are increasingly visible in fertility decisions in developing countries. Of course, in many places the old norms remain strong—so the shift is neither linear nor comprehensive.
The persistence of prenatal sex selection and female infanticide also means that gender equality remains not just a matter of rights, but of entire population structures. When girls are missing at birth and early childhood, societies lose potential mothers, workers, innovators. For countries already facing ageing populations and falling fertility, the implications are serious. The UNFPA underscores that addressing son-preference and daughter-aversion is essential to transforming harmful gender norms and ensuring that every girl born is afforded dignity, care, education and opportunity.
What is emerging then is a dual narrative: one of entrenched bias and demographic distortion in many Asian regions, and one of softening attitudes and rising appreciation of daughters—especially among younger, urban families. For the writer of detective fiction or the commentator digging at the fault lines of gender, this is fertile ground: a society where the value of a life is still determined by its projected gender, where entire cohorts vanish or prefer one sex over another, and where in some corners a quiet reversal begins to take hold. The question remains: will the shift from “son-preferred” to “daughter-accepted” gather steam before the long-term demographic damage becomes irreversible?
For now, the ghost tally of tens of millions of missing girls in Asia stands as both a human tragedy and a social red-flag—and the hopeful shifts in daughter-preference offer a glimmer of cultural change, if still fragile and uneven.
If there is one topic that makes Auntie’s blood simmer like sambal on a low flame, it’s the long, tragic, infuriating history of gender selection in Asia. The quiet, polite cruelty of deciding a child’s worth before they even take their first breath. Selective abortions, abandoned newborn girls, ultrasound hush-hush deals, families whispering prayers for sons as if daughters were defective products—Auntie has seen it, heard it, and tasted the bitterness in a dozen countries from Delhi to Da Nang.
Let’s be clear: this isn’t just a “cultural preference” or some charming old tradition we can giggle about at a dinner party. This is violence—slow, institutional, socially sanctioned violence—against women and girls. It starts in the womb and echoes through entire lifetimes. A million tiny decisions, each framed as “practical,” “economic,” or “family expectations,” add up to millions of girls erased before they even existed. Some of you uncles will still tell Auntie, “But sons carry the family name!” Really? And daughters carry everything else—caregiving, emotional labour, stability, education, and, increasingly, the family income. But still, you cling to the surname like it’s the last treasure on earth.
And oh, the irony! After decades of chasing the “ideal” boy child, whole nations now face armies of lonely young men who can’t find partners. Whoops. That’s what patriarchy does—it trips over its own logic and lands face-first in demographic catastrophe. China, India, South Korea: all grappling with skewed sex ratios, trafficking, forced marriages, and social tensions. Auntie isn’t gloating—well, maybe just a little sip of schadenfreude—but the consequences were predictable from the start.
But listen closely, my sweets, because this is where the story shifts—and Auntie loves a good plot twist. Across Asia’s cities—Tokyo, Seoul, Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City, even parts of India—something refreshing is happening. Younger, educated, urban couples are shrugging off the old patriarchal script. Many of them now prefer daughters. Others simply want fairness: “Any child is good, as long as they’re loved.” Can you imagine? A radical concept in societies that once treated baby girls like liabilities.
Why this shift? Maybe it’s women’s rising power, maybe it’s daughters outperforming sons at school and in life, maybe it’s the collapse of dusty old gender expectations. Or maybe people finally realised that children aren’t investments or retirement plans—they’re humans, tiny and deserving.
So yes, Auntie will end on a hopeful note. The old preferences are cracking. The new generation is choosing daughters with joy, or choosing equality without hesitation. And in that choice lies the quiet revolution Asia has needed for far too long.