Yes, but India's still got more men than women -- I'm rather more in favour of a 900 men for every 1000 women ratio -- makes life so much more varied ;-P
Yes, true. I wasn't trying to suggest that there is no problem - there is a very big problem indeed. But things are improving, not getting worse, and that's what I was trying to emphasize.
The classic demographic model as a country develops is:
1. Low Development: High birth rate/High death rate (population relatively stable, or growing, but not too much
2. In the process of development: Health care, nutrition, education, etc, improve rapidly, increasing life expectancy and reducing the *death rate* but not the *birth rate*. This is the period of most rapid population growth.
3. As a country heads towards being developed, the birth rate also falls (as a result of education, economic prosperity and conscious choices to have less children since fewer die in childbirth, you don't need more children to do farm work for free, etc), and population growth stabilizes.
4. And if you're Western Europe, you move into post-modern funk where population actually shrinks...
(There was a great Economist article on this some time ago).
As far as I can see, India has been in Stage 2 for decades now, but it is (slowly) beginning the move to Stage 3, which will probably take decades too. But as I noted in my earlier post, some parts of India are already getting to Stage 3..