Missing Women Estimates (Bongaarts & Guilmoto, 2015)

Missing women are defined as the number of additional women who would be alive in the absence of sex discrimination. Missing women are the sum of women missing at birth (as a result of sex-selective abortion) and excess female mortality through infanticide or neglect.

Missing female births and excess female mortality are calculated based on the difference between observed and expected sex ratios.

Authors have calculated this historically from 1970 to today in five-year intervals, with projections through to 2050.