Cash for The Girl Child

A common characteristic of underdeveloped societies is the bias that families show towards male children and adult males over their female equivalents. While few people still argue that this bias no adverse developmental effects, it has been found that the mere identification of that fact and injunction to families to treat both sexes equally hardly suffices.

A story reported here, shows that the government of India has initiated an experiment to raise the value of the girl-child to families by providing a number of incentives intended to ensure that certain desirable benchmarks are met. As it states, the state undertakes to provide direct cash incentives for families to ensure that their girl children receive vaccinations, are retained in school and eventually delay marriage until they are at least 18 years old.

While one may object that no parents ought to be "bribed" to provide equal chances for their children, I am fully in support of this idea because the children will invariably benefit from this irrespective of the biases that their parents may hold. With the commencement of the "Dhan Laxmi" pilot scheme through 11 blocks in separate states, it is possible to track the uptake and the benefits and measure the effectiveness of the programme through a randomized study. I will preempt the results by stating that this is in most probability a good investment in Indian children. The rest of the world should watch keenly.