Since Amartya Sen examined the 'missing women' problem (Sen, 1992), the survival of women has gained heightened attention as a developmental challenge, focusing on overall sex ratios and skewed birth sex ratios. Despite the considerable attention this topic has received globally, there remains a significant gap in the literature regarding the state of Assam. Conventionally, the northeastern region of India is perceived as comparatively advanced in gender-related developmental outcomes, leading to an expectation that Assam would demonstrate favourable conditions regarding the survival and status of women. This paper employs district-level data sourced from the National Family Health Surveys (NFHS) 4 (2015-16) and NFHS 5 (2019-21), along with unit-level data from NFHS 5 (2019-21), to undertake an examination of this presumption. The analysis reveals notable district-level variations in the sex ratio at birth. Furthermore, using logistic regression analysis on the unit-level data, this study quantitatively assesses the impact of various factors on the likelihood of women expressing a desire to cease childbearing. The results indicate that the probability of women opting not to have more children increases with the number of sons among their living offspring.
Choudhury et al. (Sat,) studied this question.