Partly by the elimination of other differences which could be significant, we have located one difference, the survival rate of women, which may be the cause of the lower well-being of India. We should next ask, Why is the survival rate of women less in India? We ask this question to lead us to a more critical question, Does the lower survival of women cause the lower well-being? a little further along in this analysis.
Why is the survival rate of women less in India? This question leads us to evidence of differences in the mortality rates of females and males in young and old age categories. In a population with normal female/male ratios, such as Kerala, we might expect and do see a slightly higher death rates for boys age 0-14 than for girls. Demographic evidence shows that both this higher boy death rate and the larger number of boys born compared to girls is genetic. Sex parity is normally reached by or before age 25.
However, in North India the girl child death rate is shown to much higher (28 per 1000) compared to the boy child death rate (19 per 1000). Other studies have located the low survival of women displayed in the abnormally low Indian female/male ratios in the high death rates of little girls contrasted to boys in India. (Miller, Das Gupta)
This girl child selective mortality, a deadly expression of son preference, has been labelled Fatal Daughter Syndrome. We now face another question, What is the cause of fatal daughter syndrome?