India has found an innovative and provocative way to address one of its biggest challenges. The government plans to offer as much as $5 000 (R39 100) to poor families to give birth to girls and raise them.
The aim is to reduce a cultural preference for boys that is throwing the nation's gender balance out of whack and threatening the long-term outlook for Asia's third-largest economy.
Sex-ratio imbalances are also a growing problem in China, where sons are often preferred over daughters. Economists say the gap may undermine Asian growth and productivity, and lead to bigger budget deficits.
A study published in the UK's Lancet medical journal found that about 10 million female fetuses may have been aborted in India over the past 20 years. The UN Children's Fund says India loses almost 7 000 girls a day through abortions after illegal sex-determination tests.
According to the latest census figures, India has 927 females for every 1 000 males and the gap is growing.
Paying families to raise daughters isn't the most delicate way to approach the problem, but kudos to India for trying. India is helping to highlight one of the biggest forces holding back Asian growth.
Sandra Lawson, an analyst at Goldman Sachs Group in Hong Kong, marked International Women's Day with a report entitled "Women Hold Up Half the Sky", referring to a Chinese proverb about the pivotal role women play in economies. Lawson focuses on how things might be if governments did more to address the imbalance between men and women in education, health, work, wages and political aspirations. "At the macroeconomic level, female education is a key source of support for long-term economic growth," Lawson writes. "It has been linked to higher productivity, higher returns on investment, higher agricultural yields and a more favourable demographic structure."
India's latest initiative hopes to achieve the latter benefit, by encouraging families not only to have girls, but to educate them better. It is spacing out payments to families to make sure girls end up in school.
Virtuous cycle
"The economic growth that results from education feeds a virtuous cycle, supporting continued investments in education and extending the gains to human capital and productivity," Lawson says.
Gender discrimination isn't something on which investors tend to focus. It doesn't feed handily into stock valuations, bond yields or gross domestic product figures. Yet it's one of the region's least-appreciated weaknesses.
Lawson's report mostly emphasises the Bric economies - Brazil, Russia, India and China - and the "N-11", or the next 11 growth stars: Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, South Korea, Turkey and Vietnam.
While it's a disparate group, Lawson estimates narrowing the gender gap could boost per capita income by as much as 14 percent by 2020 and 20 percent by 2030.
Economists such as Lawrence Summers have long argued that returns on investment in female education exceed those on boys. The more educated women are, the more likely they are to invest in the health and education of their families. It leads to an economic ripple effect from one generation to the next.
The undereducation of girls is driven by a complex mix of causes, often lumped under the heading of culture.
"Its prevalence across so many countries strongly suggests parents think the returns on girls' education are limited and lower than those of boys," Lawson says. "This perception is in fact a misperception."
The issue transcends education. Look no further than Japan, where women are still struggling to achieve anything approaching equality. It's not about schooling, but institutionalised sexism.
Last year, Grant Thornton International surveyed 7 200 privately held businesses in 32 countries, representing 81 percent of global gross domestic product, to gauge gender gaps for top-level executives. Japan came in last.
Things were thought to be changing a few years back. In 2005, Tomoyo Nonaka of Sanyo Electric and Fumiko Hayashi of retailer Daiei became the first women to run major Japanese firms. Nonaka lasted only 21 months; Hayashi was knocked back to vice-chairman after two years in the top job.
Action is needed to make proverbs about women holding up half the sky more fact than aspiration. A little girl power could go a long way.