Scientific Presentations
LabTalks@DCD
Department of Digital and Computational Demography
Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR), Rostock, Germany, November 05, 2025
11:00 AM: Talk with Jasmin Abdel Ghany - Temperature and Sex Ratios at Birth
Room 400
Abstract
Human sex ratios at birth (SRBs) shape population composition and are closely linked to maternal health and gender discrimination. In the context of climate change, SRBs may theoretically be skewed by physiological or behavioral responses to exposure to global warming. However, evidence for this is limited. In this study, we estimate the effect of prenatal exposure to temperature on birth sex by linking survey data on 5 ( live births in 33 sub-Saharan African countries and India with high-resolution temperature data. To distinguish between spontaneous and induced abortions, we exploit sociodemographic differentials, exposure timing, and regional differences in son preference. We find that days with a maximum temperature above 20°C are negatively associated with male births in both regions. In sub-Saharan Africa, we observe fewer male births after high first trimester temperature exposure, consistent with increased spontaneous abortions from maternal heat stress. This is particularly true for births by mothers in rural areas, with little formal education, and for higher birth orders. By contrast, in India we find second trimester temperature exposure is associated with fewer male births, consistent with reductions in induced sex-selective abortions against girls. As expected, these reductions are concentrated in higher birth orders and older mothers. We also find large reductions in male births by sonless mothers in northern Indian states, where son preference is greater. These findings demonstrate that extreme heat harms maternal health, increases prenatal mortality, and affects family planning behavior, leading to a complex effect on sex ratios at birth.
About
Jasmin Abdel Ghany is a Nuffield Postdoctoral Prize Research Fellow in Sociology at the University of Oxford. After joining the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in the Fertility and Wellbeing Lab in 2021, she defended her PhD in October at the University of Oxford, where she was funded by Nuffield College and the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science. Her research is concerned with the impact of climate change on fertility, maternal health, and infant health. She is particularly interested in identifying population groups that are disproportionately vulnerable to climate impacts, the role of biological and behavioral mechanisms in shaping outcomes at birth and after birth, and in the question of how prenatal exposures shape social stratification. Jasmin also contributed to discussions regarding the recent termination of the Demographic and Health Survey Program. For her paper on Temperature and Sex Ratios at Birth, she won the PHDS Annual Academy’s Best Poster Award in 2022.