Borooah VK, Gender bias among children in India in their diet and immunisation against disease, 2004: Social Science and Medicine, Vol: 58, p1719-1731.

This paper exploits information from a rich set of data for India to examine and to quantify two important aspects of the relative neglect of girls. The first is the degree to which girls between the ages of 1 and 2 years (inclusive), relative to boys of the same age, were ‘fully immunised’ (defined below) against: tuberculosis (by means of a Bacille Calmette Guerin (BCG) vaccination); polio; diptheria–pertussis– tetanus (DPT); and measles. The second aspect (of the neglect of girls) is the extent to which, relative to boys, they received a ‘nutritious’ diet (defined below).