cportner
commented
3 years ago The idea is that even though the spacing between births become longer with sex-selective abortions, the spacing between \emph{pregnancies} may still be very short as suggested by a prior reviewer. If short pregnancy spacing has negative effects on child outcomes, the short pregnancy spacing may dampen or completely eliminate any positive effects from longer spacing. I have expanded the discussion of the possible counteracting effects in the Introduction.
Second, what is the relationship between infant mortality and the changes in birth spacing and sex selection? In India, birth intervals have traditionally been shorter with fewer sons, contributing to girls' higher mortality risk \citep{Whitworth2002,Bhalotra2008,Maitra2008,Jayachandran2011,Jayachandran2017a}. Therefore, longer birth spacing may reduce mortality through, for example, diminished sibling competition \citep{Conde-Agudelo2012,Molitoris2019}. However, if the spacing between births lengthens because of sex-selective abortions, the spacing between pregnancies may still be very short. Short pregnancy spacing may lead to worse child outcomes because of maternal nutritional depletion and insufficient time to recover from the previous pregnancy. Hence, children born after long birth intervals where multiple abortions have punctuated those intervals may not see the same benefits as a child born after a long interval that is not punctuated by abortions.
P. 2: the main point of this sentence is unclear: “Counteracting effect is possible if longer birth intervals arise from multiple abortions because the short duration between pregnancies could increase mortality.”