PANAJI
A recent report of the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (NFHS-5) 2019-21 has claimed that Goa has the lowest sex ratio under seven years of age in the country, and that the sex ratio of the Goan population under seven years of age is found to be unusually skewed at 774 females per 1,000 males. This ratio is lower than the 2019-20 survey of 838 girls per 1,000 boys, and the ratio of 966 girls per 1,000 boys as per 2015-16 figures. At the same time, for the overall population of Goa, the sex ratio is significantly healthy at 1,027 females to every 1000 males.
Pointing out to these figures, Dr Shekhar Salkar, head of the oncology department at Manipal Hospitals Goa, explains that this survey seems to be misleading. “NFHS is sample survey, if I am not mistaken, 1,500 households as sample size. Goa has almost 100% registration of births and deaths. In that case, there is no need to go for sample surveys. One can find out at the click of a mouse, the figures and sex of children born in a specific year,” stated Dr Salkar.
"In adults or all population data, there is 1,027 females per 1000 males, which, theoretically, shows that more males die after the age of seven years, till adulthood. Till seven years there are less females and more males, but after seven years till adulthood there are more females than males. How can this be possible? Even if we consider that there are more deaths in the male child after the age of seven, this does not mean that the female children will outnumber them. How would the female sex ratio figure 774 jump to 1,027 after crossing the age of seven? This seems unreal. These seem to be contradictory figures. We have to take the NFHS survey report with a pinch of salt,” said Dr Salkar.
