ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2026
Masculinization of populations reverses sex differences in fertility.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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.
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.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Reproductive-age populations show a growing male surplus around the globe as a consequence of declining mortality, narrowing sex differences in mortality, and sex-selective abortions in some countries. Population structures are important determinants of marriage markets and childbearing. In this study, we estimate the past, current, and future difference between the male and the female total fertility rates around the world using an established indirect demographic approach drawing on data from the UN World Population Prospects. Our results indicate a crossover from historically higher male fertility to increasingly higher female fertility, which occurs globally in 2024. This shift is not toward parity, but rather reflects a growing disparity driven by the increasing male surplus at reproductive ages, which exerts downward pressure on male fertility rates relative to those of women. The difference is expected to grow to up to 20% in countries like China and India, where sex-selective abortion has reinforced sex imbalances in population structures. Overall, we highlight the growing sex inequalities in reproduction and call for more research on sex differences in fertility.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
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.