Evidence map›Paper›PMID 22456881›Full record

ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2012

Does famine influence sex ratio at birth? Evidence from the 1959-1961 Great Leap Forward Famine in China.

Shige Song

Abstract readHistorical Article
In one paragraph

Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 48 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
48citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

48 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Trial
  2. Article
  3. In Utero Selection Echoes Across a Lifetime: Evidence From Historical Utah Populations.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2026
    Article
  4. Temperature and sex ratios at birth.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026
    Article
  5. Article
  6. Article
  7. Article
  8. Article
  9. Article
  10. Article
  11. Article
  12. Article
  13. Accelerated biological aging six decades after prenatal famine exposure.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024
    Article
  14. Review
  15. Accelerated biological aging six decades after prenatal famine exposure.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2023
    Article
  16. Article
  17. Article
  18. Review
  19. Article
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

1 author.

Shige SongQueens College and CUNY Institute for Demographic Research, City University of New York, Flushing, NY 11367, USA. shige.song@qc.cuny.edu

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

The current study examined the long-term trend in sex ratio at birth between 1929 and 1982 using retrospective birth histories of 310 101 Chinese women collected in a large, nationally representative sample survey in 1982. The study identified an abrupt decline in sex ratio at birth between April 1960, over a year after the Great Leap Forward Famine began, and October 1963, approximately 2 years after the famine ended, followed by a compensatory rise between October 1963 and July 1965. These findings support the adaptive sex ratio adjustment hypothesis that mothers in good condition are more likely to give birth to sons, whereas mothers in poor condition are more likely to give birth to daughters. In addition, these findings help explain the lack of consistent evidence reported by earlier studies based on the 1944-1945 Dutch Hunger Winter or the 1942 Leningrad Siege.

Indexed as

Sex RatioStarvationChinaFemaleHistory, 20th CenturyHumansMalePregnancyPrenatal Exposure Delayed EffectsRetrospective StudiesTime Factors

Identifiers

PMID22456881
PMCPMC3367790

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.