Historical Trends and Implications of the Sex Ratio at Birth in Georgia, 1926- 2024
This study reconstructs a century-long historical baseline for Georgia's sex ratio at birth (1926–2024), revealing a stable natural range until the late 1980s followed by a sharp rise indicative of gender imbalances that, while peaking lower than neighboring Armenia and Azerbaijan, remain elevated above natural levels through 2024.
Original paper licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This is an AI-generated explanation of the paper below. It is not written or endorsed by the authors. For technical accuracy, refer to the original paper. Read full disclaimer
In the quiet rhythm of human reproduction, there is a biological constant that has held steady for millennia: the natural tendency for slightly more boys to be born than girls. Under normal conditions, for every one hundred baby girls, about one hundred and five baby boys arrive into the world. This ratio, known as the sex ratio at birth, is a delicate balance maintained by biology. However, when this number shifts significantly—when far too many boys are born, or far too few—it often signals that something beyond nature is at work. It can be a sign that families are making choices about the sex of their children, or that a society is under such stress that the biological balance is tipped. Understanding these shifts is crucial because they reveal deep truths about a population's health, its values, and the pressures it faces.
For nearly a century, the country of Georgia, nestled in the South Caucasus, has been a place where these numbers were rarely scrutinized in a long-term context. Researchers Khatia Otarashvili, Nino Nazirishvili, Eka Paatashvili, and Ali Mirzazadeh set out to fill this gap by reconstructing the history of births in Georgia from 1926 to 2024. Their work is not just a collection of statistics; it is a historical detective story that pieces together a century of life and death to find a baseline of what is natural for this specific region. By combining old census records, modern birth registrations, and United Nations data, they created a continuous timeline that stretches back to a time before reliable electronic records existed.
The team faced a significant hurdle at the start of their timeline. For the decades between 1926 and 1950, direct records of how many boys and girls were born each year were incomplete or missing. To solve this, they looked at the children who survived. They examined the ratio of boys to girls among children aged zero to four years old during those early years. Because boys are biologically more fragile and die at slightly higher rates than girls in early childhood, the number of boys in a group of young children is usually lower than the number of boys who were actually born. The researchers used a mathematical adjustment, derived from a later period when data was perfect, to work backward. They calculated how many boys must have been born to result in the number of surviving children they observed, effectively peering through the fog of history to estimate the true starting numbers.
What they found was a story of stability followed by a dramatic shift. For the first half of the twentieth century, and indeed until the late 1980s, the sex ratio in Georgia remained remarkably steady. It hovered within the natural biological range, generally around 105 to 106 boys for every 100 girls. There were small, natural fluctuations, including a dip to a low of 101.2 in 1979, but the numbers never strayed far from the expected norm. This long period of stability suggests that during the Soviet era, the biological mechanisms of birth were not being significantly altered by social choices or external interventions. The conditions of the time, including limited access to technology for determining the sex of a fetus, meant that families could not easily act on any preference for a specific gender.
The narrative changes sharply in the early 1990s, coinciding with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the turbulent transition that followed. As the country underwent massive social and economic upheaval, the sex ratio began to climb. It rose quickly, reaching a peak of approximately 111 boys for every 100 girls in the early 2000s. This was a clear departure from the natural baseline. The researchers noted that this rise was not an isolated event; their neighbors in Armenia and Azerbaijan saw similar, though even more extreme, spikes, with ratios reaching as high as 117. The timing suggests that the combination of new technologies, such as ultrasound machines that could reveal a baby's sex, and the stress of a changing society, allowed existing preferences for sons to translate into actual changes in birth outcomes.
The study also tracked the children who survived these shifts. Just as the ratio of boys born increased, the ratio of boys among children aged zero to four also climbed, mirroring the birth trends. This confirms that the imbalance was not a temporary glitch in reporting but a real demographic shift that altered the composition of the youngest generation. While the numbers have begun to decline since their peak in the early 2000s, they have not yet returned to the natural levels seen before the 1990s. Even in 2024, the ratio remains elevated, suggesting that the effects of that era are still rippling through the population.
This research provides the first long-term historical baseline for Georgia, a reference point that allows scientists and policymakers to distinguish between natural biological variation and human-driven imbalances. The authors emphasize that while their data shows a clear population-level trend, it cannot tell them the specific reasons why individual families made the choices they did. However, the timing of the shift, occurring right after the arrival of new medical technologies and during a time of social instability, strongly suggests that access to sex-determination tools played a major role. The study concludes that while Georgia's shift was less severe than in its neighbors, the region as a whole experienced a profound demographic transformation. By establishing what is normal for Georgia over a century, this work offers a clear lens through which to view the future, helping to identify when the balance tips again and guiding efforts to ensure that the next generation is born in equilibrium.
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