Master of Arts

thesisBy analyzing evidence from the China 2000 and 2010 County-level Censuses, which includes over 3,000 county units, questions regarding which socio-demographic covariates correlate with the sex ratio at birth can be answered. This study investigated variables that have connections to gender discrimination - such as gender difference in illiteracy - and conducted OLS and logistic analysis at the 2000, 2010, and 2000-2010 years. Results indicate the gender difference in college enrollment revealed the most conclusive findings, with a positive relationship to the SRB at the 0.001 significance level. In two of the models, there was a positive correlation of the prevalence of multigenerational households and the SRB. All the results suggest that urbanization is a negative covariate of SRB, although results are not significant in the 2010 analysis. According to these results, efforts ought to be made at targeting women's education in counties with a large gender gap in college enrollment, policies ought to be catered to rural areas as well as urban areas, and formation of nuclear families ought to be encouraged as opposed to families based on virilocal marriage