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children had lower contact rates than all other demographic groups tncludtng adult
females A study carried out in Ludhiana revealed the followng (UNICEF,1994b)-
. Out of 20,407 children who attended the outpattent department. 65.2% were boys
and the rest (34 890) were girls
Out of 3,773 children adm~ned In hospital. 83 5% were boys and only 16.5%
were girls
. Out of the ch~ldren admitted, the proportion of female children dying exceeded
that of male children.
In another study from the same place it was shown that males had a lower mortality
than females after the first month of llfe (Pebley and Amin.1991). Preferential
hospitalization of boys in the ratio of 60:40 was reported from a study In Bihar
(Snvastava and Nayak.1995) The male: female hosp~talization ratio vaned from 2:l to
1 3 1, the latter being malnly from South India (Ghosh,1986). The health care glven to
girls was found to be better in South lnd~a Basu (1989) observed that the probabtlily of
surv~val for girls was much lower than that of boys in the districts of Utlar Pradesh,
whlle ~t was roughly equal for gtrls and boys in Tamil Nadu. A survey from Pune
revealed that sisters recelved equal treatment as compared to their brothers with
respect to nutrit~on and health care (Kanrtkar,l996). However, a study from Salem
d~stnct In Tarn11 Nadu showed that 90.0% of the low and 25.0% of middle income
famlltes showed
btas In glving medical attention to daughters, practictng self
rrled~caliutt for dauyhle~s atid hospital atletittoll lor sons (Satnantaray and Jerla.lY9b).
though nutnt~onally the girls were better than boys Overall, the gender discnm~nation
In health care was higher in the Northern stales than the Southern states Of
India, and
over the years thts dlscrtm~natory practice appears to be on the decllne (SdvaStava and
Nayak 1995)