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countnes and In some develop~ng countnes llke Phlllpplnes, Jamalca and Venezuela
the preference for sons 1s not very strong (Oduntan,i995) The reasons for thls attltude
are not dearly known, although tradlbons and culture play an Important role
jb) Nutrition, health care and the airl child
In developed countnes, the mortailty In ch~ldren IS generally hlgher In males than In
females In all age groups from birth Thls IS because of the Inherent suscepbb~l~ty of the
male chlldren to succumb to illnesses for unknown reasons as there IS no
discnmlnatlon In the health care glven (Oduntan.1995) On the other hand, In
developlng countnes llke Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan. Snlanka, Syna, Jordan, Korea
and Egypt the mortality In Infants and chlldren was reported to be h~gher In females
than In males (Oduntan.1995) Thls was d~rectly or lndlrectly associated wlth the
nutnt~onal status of the glrl chlld thereby showlng that they suffered from a greater
degree of malnutntlon than boys In many developlng countnes, glrls have less food,
madequate health care and educatlon, and mincmal personal care and protect~on A
study In Bangladesh showed, that boys under 5 years of age were given 16 0% more
food than girls (Wallace,1995) It was also observed In another study, again from
Bangladesh, that 14 4% of female chlldren were severely malnounshed as against
5 1% of male chlldren and the male health care ut~l~zahon rate was 66 0% hlgher than
females in the same place (Okojle,1994)
Education and the girl child
Gender lnequal~ty IS evldent ~n many aspects of llfe lnequal~ty Irl educatlon IS
Particularly Important because ~t undermines the stwggle for equallty ~n almost all other
flelds Education for all has been taken seriously only since the 1950's and there IS a