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The sex ratio of Igbo births
Author(s) -
Egwuatu V.E.
Publication year - 1984
Publication title -
international journal of gynecology and obstetrics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.895
H-Index - 97
eISSN - 1879-3479
pISSN - 0020-7292
DOI - 10.1016/0020-7292(84)90074-2
Subject(s) - igbo , hausa , sex ratio , demography , medicine , population , homogeneous , socioeconomics , environmental health , philosophy , linguistics , sociology , physics , thermodynamics
The study determined that the sex ratio of live‐born infants in the Igbo‐occupied area of Nigeria is about 1.04. This figure, although similar to the 1.03 reported for Zaire and for the black populations of the US and the Caribbean, is lower than the 1.05 to 1.07 accepted for most European populations, the 1.06 recorded for the Yorubas of western Nigeria, and the 1.07 reported for the Hausa people of one northern Nigerian province. Values ranging from 1.12 to 1.14 have been reported for Africans of Uganda and Cameroun. All these figures are lower than the 1.15 recorded for the Far Eastern peoples and support the widely held impression that the sex ratio at birth is influenced by, among other factors, geographical and genetic distribution. Results of the study of Igbo births also showed that the sex ratio within a homogeneous population varies with place of confinement, from a high in hospitals to a low in community health centers.