Sex Ratio in National Birth Registers
The sex ratio at birth, also called the secondary sex ratio, and here denoted SR, is usually defined as the number of males per 100 females. Among newborns there is almost always a slight excess of boys. Consequently, the SR is greater than 100, mainly around 106.
John Graunt (1620–1674) was the first person to compile data showing an excess of male births to female births and to note spatial and temporal variation in the SR. John Arbuthnot (1667–1735) demonstrated that the excess of males was statistically significant and asserted that the SR is uniform over time and space (Campbell 2001). Referring to christenings in London in the 82 years up to 1710, Arbuthnot suggested that the regularity in the SR and the dominance of males over females could not be attributed to chance and must be an indication of divine providence. Nicholas Bernoulli’s (1695–1726) counter-argument was that Arbuthnot’s model was too restrictive. Instead of a fair coin model,...
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References and Further Reading
Campbell RB (2001) John Graunt, John Arbuthnott, and the human sex ratio. Hum Biol 73:605–610
David FN (1962) Games, gods and gambling. Charles Griffin, London
Eriksson AW, Vainio-Mattila B, Krause U, Fellman J, Forsius H (1967) Secondary sex ratio in families with X-chromosomal disorders. Hereditas 57:373–381
Fellman J, Eriksson AW, Forsius H (2002) Sex ratio and proportion of affected sons in sibships with X-chromosomal recessive traits: maximum likelihood estimation in truncated multinomial distributions. Hum Hered 53:173–180
Hacking I (1975) The emergence of probability. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Hawley AH (1959) Population composition. In: Hauser PM, Duncan OD (ed) The study of population: an inventory and appraisal. University of Chicago, Chicago, pp 361–382
Lindsey JK, Altham PME (1998) Analysis of the human sex ratio by using overdispersion models. Appl stat 47: 149–157
Slater E (1943) A demographic study of a psychopathic population. Ann Eugenic 12:121–137
Visaria PM (1967) Sex ratio at birth in territories with a relatively complete registration. Eugenic Quart 14:132–142
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Fellman, J. (2011). Sex Ratio at Birth. In: Lovric, M. (eds) International Encyclopedia of Statistical Science. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-04898-2_513
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