Abstract
SEX RATIOS IN AFRICA.-Capt. L. W. G. Malcolm has brought together in the American Anthropologist, vol. 26, No. 4, data from various sources, in addition to his own observations, bearing upon the question of sex ratios among the tribes of West Africa and other parts of that continent, with the view of ascertaining what relationship these ratios bear to racial decline or otherwise. In the case of the adult sex ratio there is, in the majority of cases, a low degree of masculinity. The preponderance of females over males, however, in many cases is due purely to artificial causes, such as intertribal warfare and slavery or forced labour, which have depopulated large tracts, especially in West Africa. The ratio is 89: 80. For the sex ratio at birth the information is very scanty; but it appears to be somewhat lower than that of European countries. The suggestion that a surplusage of adult men over adult women of reproductive age is consistent with a corresponding decline in the crude population, and that an increasing population produces a surplusage of women, does not appear to be in accord with the observed facts. The evidence for Africa is too scanty to indicate whether there is a higher proportion of male to female births in polygamous or monogamous marriages. An appended note by Dr. A. S. Parkes suggests that the great excess of females among adults is produced by a high masculinity in the mortality, possibly due to an inherent frailty of males which is also apparent in European figures.
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Research Items. Nature 115, 583–585 (1925). https://doi.org/10.1038/115583a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/115583a0