Religion and Socio-demographic reproduction crisis: Sikh marriage - - PDF document

Religion and Socio-demographic reproduction crisis: Sikh marriage squeeze in India and Diaspora

Since 1980’s, the widespread practice of selective abortions has disturbed the demographic structure (120 boys per 100 girls, age 0-4 years, in 2011) of Sikh community in India. Consequently, the acute shortage of females in marital and reproductive ages is affecting the traditional marriage market and hindering the socio-demographic reproduction of the community in India and Sikh diaspora. Moreover, the spread of education and consistently better performance of women in higher education as compared to men (who was expelled to Western countries by unemployment), have created additional difficulties for match making. In this paper, our main objective is to explore the effects of changing demography and women’s education on the socio-demographic reproduction of the Sikh community in India and abroad. By using 2011 census data on Religious communities in India and last three NHF surveys 1992, 1998 and 2005, we have estimated the number of missing girls, and the intensity and timing of expected marriage squeeze in the Sikh community. To explore its effect on peripheral Sikh diaspora; we have conducted 64 in-depth interviews of Sikh immigrants in Spain and Italy, who, owing to their low perceived social capital, were in the most disadvantageous position in the global diaspora hierarchy. Key words: Sikh religion, marriage market, missing girls, diaspora, social reproduction.

Introduction Recently, anthropologist Thomas Hylland Eriksen (2016), described identity crisis as a result of "overheating" of the social reproduction system caused by globalization, acceleration of immigrant flows and weakening of the state in developed countries. His analysis was mainly aimed to explain the increasing difficulties in the immigrant’s settlement and integration into the Western societies, which, owing to their prolonged low fertility and below-replacement growth rate has become a "complex demographic reproduction system based on immigration". However, if we see the condition of immigrant sending communities, like Sikhs in India, this approach can also be applied

to them, which now can be called a "complex demographic reproduction system based

• n emigration", where mass emigration of young males and acute shortage of females is
• verheating the community’s socio-demographic reproduction process. In this case, the

identity which is entirely based on religion (Sikhism) has been shaken, if not put into real crisis, by the changes triggered by mass emigration under globalization and the shortage of females because of the sex selection at birth. Sex imbalance in favour of males is not a new phenomenon in the Indian Sikh

• community. Historically, it was characterised with the high sex ratio at younger ages,

mainly due to the female infanticide and high female mortality caused by the lack of basic necessities and medical care during the early childhood period (Das Gupta, 1987). Since 1980s owing to the spread of pre-natal sex determination techniques (Amniocentesis and Ultrasound tests) in India, the practice of female infanticide transformed into sex selected abortions. Despite of its illegality, the states with considerable Sikh population in India i.e. Punjab and Haryana had the highest prevalence of sex selected abortions during the last decade (Kulkarni, 2007). The normal sex ratio at birth (SRB) in the human population is around 105 males for 100 females and it gets equal due to the excess male mortality afterwards. Among the Sikhs, the sex ratio at 0 to 4 year age group in 2011 was 120 males to 100 females, which was much higher than the standard and the national average of 109. This high imbalance results in a significant number of ‘missing girls’ in the Sikh community, who were the victims of sex selected abortion. The skewed sex ratio in previous cohorts always results in a marriage squeeze (Akers, 1967). Similarly, the shortage of females in the Sikh marriage market, which was traditionally characterized by the universality of marriage, caste endogamy, clan exogamy, and socioeconomic and educational homogamy (Ballard, 1990), is pushing

the community towards a marriage squeeze in the near future in their homeland and in

• diaspora. In the peripheral countries of the Sikh diaspora, like Italy and Spain, where

estimated one-third of the total Indian immigrants in 2016 were young unmarried males, amidst these socio-demographic changes, the situation in marriage market is changing radically (Bonfanti, 2014). Owing to the low perceived social capital of these countries in the hierarchy of diaspora countries, these young males will be at the most disfavourable position in the Sikh marriage market. Among the Sikhs, “marriage” is considered as the founding pillar for the socio- cultural and demographic reproduction of the community. The future marriage-squeeze can pose a threat to this continuous process. Along with demographic changes, the widening gender gap in educational attainment is expected to increase the squeeze. According to the 2011 census of India, in the age group of 20-35 years in Punjab, the share of females with university degrees was 8% higher than the males. As in India mostly males want to marry with the females less educated than themselves and female wanting to marry with more educated males, now a new problem is emerging for the well-educated females and low educated males to find suitable matches in the

• community. Generally, the Sikhs are not advised to marry with Non-Sikhs1 and most of

the marriages are arranged-marriages (following caste and clan rules), the lack of suitable matches are putting additional stress on the traditional marriage market. In this paper, our starting hypothesis is ‘owing to the shortage of females and widening gender educational gap, the Sikh community is heading towards a big “marriage squeeze”, which will adversely affect their traditional marriage market and push the community towards a socio-demographic reproduction and identity

1 http://realSikhism.com/index.php?subaction=showfull&id=1253136185&ucat=7

preservation crisis in India and abroad’. Secondly, ‘the peripheral Sikh diaspora, which is composed of low profile young unmarried males (who largely depend upon the homeland marriage market for marriages), will suffer most from the shortage of expected brides in the Indian Sikh community’. To defend these hypotheses, we are going to make an assessment of the current demographic situation of Sikh community in India and the impact of selective abortions on it; secondly, to analyse the impact of “missing brides” and widening gender education gap on the traditional marriage market; and finally, the qualitative analysis of the discourse on marriage squeeze, gender relations, religion and socio-demographic reproduction of the community in the peripheral countries of Sikh diaspora i.e. Spain and Italy. Data Sources and Methodology In this paper, we are using data from 2011 census of India. In addition to other variables, this census also provides data on the size and basic characteristics of major religious groups at the national and state level. As the information in Census is limited, hence to explore other socio-demographic characteristics, we are using the data from three rounds of the National Family and Health Survey 1992-93, 1998-99 and 2005-06. As our prime objective is to explore the impact of socio-demographic changes, on the marriage market and socio-demographic reproduction of the Sikh community at their homeland and in the diaspora, to focus on the periphery of Sikh diaspora, we have conducted 64 in-depth interviews of Sikh immigrants in Spain and Italy. The selection

• f Italy and Spain was driven by the fact that in 2016, almost two third of the total

Indian immigrants in these countries were Sikhs and their number was increasing rapidly with continuous inflows. Hence, it provides us an opportunity to observe how the young immigrants in the peripheral diaspora countries deal with this emerging marriage squeeze and socio-demographic reproduction crisis in their homeland.

In this paper, we are using a mixed methodology. A quantitative part includes the estimation of “Missing Women” from the Indian Sikh community, and the intensity

• f expected marriage squeeze owing to this shortage of females. To estimate the number
• f missing girls, we are using the “overall-sex-ratio” approach (Sen, 1990; Klasen and

Wink, 2002). According to this approach by applying the sex ratio of a chosen benchmark population to the number of men in a population under investigation in a given year, the expected number of women in the study population can be estimated. The difference between the women expected and the women alive in the observed population provides the number of missing women. It should be noted that the number

• f missing women estimated by this overall-sex-ratio approach is based on the existing
• bserved surviving population in the given year. The percentage of missing women is

calculated as the ratio between the missing female population and the expected female

• population. Sen (1989, 1990) chose the population and sex ratio of Sub-Saharan Africa

countries, as the benchmark. But in this paper, we have used the sex ratio of the Christian community of India, as the benchmark population composition. The main reasons behind the selection of the Christian community were firstly, it has no recorded history of sex-selected abortions and female infanticide; and secondly, the size of the Christian population in India is similar to the Sikh population. To estimate the intensity

• f expected marriage squeeze, we have calculated a Marriage squeeze index (MSI),

which is based upon the availability of expected brides and grooms in different cohorts. When the number of expected brides and grooms is equal the MSI will be zero and it will start increasing with the imbalance among the sexes in different cohorts. The positive MSI shows the excess of males and the negative MSI the excess of females in a given cohort.

To analyse the discourse regarding the scarcity of females and marriage squeeze in peripheral diaspora, we have applied an inductive approach (Goddard and Melville, 2004), which means that we are going to look for a pattern of meaning on the basis of the information that we have collected through interviews. This involves a move from the specific to the general and is sometimes called a bottom-up approach, under ‘Grounded theory’ (Glaser and Strauss, 1967). The study took place in eight provinces with largest Sikh immigrant population in Italy (Rome, Brescia and Latina) and Spain (Barcelona, Valencia, Madrid, Mallorca and Girona). The sampling frame for the interviewees was they should be born in India, above age sixteen, both sexes, and living in Spain or Italy. Various characteristics of participants, like age, sex, place of residence, education, legal status, marital status, year of arrival, employment and the position in the community were taken into consideration. For this study 64 semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted during 2016-2017 (Appendix 1). The average time of interview was sixty minutes and interviews were conducted in one of the three languages, i.e. Hindi, Punjabi or English as per the convenience of interviewees. Most of the interviews were conducted at the usual place of residence of interviewees or some public places selected by interviewees. All the interviews were conducted with an open-ended questionnaire, audio recorded and included in the analysis process. To analyse the qualitative data, ‘Thematic analysis’ was executed on the full data set. According to Boyatzis (1998) thematic analysis can be used to process, analyse and interpret information, regardless of the ontology or epistemology of the research. It increases the ability to communicate findings and interpretation of meaning, allowing more complete understanding of the phenomenon. To begin with analysis, all collected data were transcript and organized. Later on we followed the steps mentioned by Braun

and Clarke (2006) for thematic analysis, i.e. 1) Familiarizing with the data; 2) Generating initial codes; 3) Searching for themes; 4) Reviewing themes; 5) Defining and naming themes and 6) Producing the report. A qualitative data analysis software ATLAS.ti was used for the study. Socio-demographic situation of Sikh community Sikh demography Sikhism is the fourth largest religion in India after Hinduism, Islam and Christianity. According to the 2011 census of India, the total Sikh population in India was 20.8 million, which formed 1.72% of the total population of India (1210 million). The population of Sikhs in the state of Punjab, which is their homeland, was 16 million. It means that 76.82% of the total Sikhs of India were living in Punjab alone. It was the

• nly state in the country having a majority of the population belonging to Sikh religion,

where they constitute 57.69% of the total population. After Punjab, Haryana (6%), Rajasthan (4%), Uttar Pradesh (3%) and NCT Delhi (2.7%) had the significant number

• f Sikhs in India. The decadal growth rate of Sikh population during 2001 to 2011 was

8.4%, which was much lower as compared to the growth rate of other religious communities (Hindu, 16.8% and Muslim, 24.6%) or the national growth (17.7%). The decadal growth of Sikh population in India between 1991 and 2001 was almost 17%, which means that during the last decade (2001-2011) the growth rate of Sikhs has decreased by almost 9% (Figure 1). Figure 1: The size and decadal growth of Sikh population in India, 1931-2011.

Source: own elaboration with data from Census of India, 1931-2011.

The low growth rate of Sikhs is commonly attributed to the fertility transition and emigration of Sikhs to the developed countries like Canada, the USA, the UK and most recently Australia. As per the fertility transition is concerned, the Sikhs had recorded the lowest Total Fertility Rate (TFR) of 1.95, in the NHFS 2005, as compared to other religious communities: Hindus (2.7), Muslims (3.1) and Christians (2.4) in

• India. The past trends of fertility show a continuous decline in the TFR in Punjab, even

sharper than the decline at National level (Figure 2). Consequently, in the Sikh community during the first decade of 21st century, each new born cohort was smaller than the previous one. Figure 2: The level of Total Fertility Rate in India and Punjab, 1971-2011.

Source: Sample Registration System (SRS), Registrar General, India, Various volumes. Note: Rates for India exclude Mizoram till 1995 and Jammu and Kashmir from 1991 onwards.

Apart from the low growth rate, the high sex ratio at younger ages in favour of males is a major concern for the Sikh community. According to the 2011 census, as compared to other religious communities of India, the Sikhs have the most skewed sex ratio in favour of males (Figure 3). It shows the prevalence of the sex selective abortions in the community, which results in the large number of missing girls. Historically, Sex selection was prevalent in the societies that express a strong desire for sons (Bandyopadhyay and Singh, 2003). Amartya Sen (2003) has uncovered that in the last century, “100 million women have been missing in South Asia, due to discrimination leading to death experienced by them from womb to tomb in their life cycles” (as cited in Patel 2007:289). According to an estimate there may be over ten million “missing” women in India alone (Jha et al., 2006). The cultural basis for the sex selection include the necessity or utility of male offspring for manual labour, elder care, property inheritance, continuation of the family name or bloodline, and avoidance of the expenses of dowry. Figure 3: The age specific sex ratio of major religious communities in India, 2011.

Source: own elaboration with data from census of India, 2011.

During the British Raj period, in the Sikh community, the elimination of girl child was tied to female infanticide (Montgomery, 1853 and Snehi, 2003). This practice was prevalent among upper-caste Bedee Khatris (Patel, 2007, Malhotra, 2002:49), who

claimed to be the descendants of the first Sikh Guru, and because of their caste pride, they were not willing to marry their daughters to lower castes, so they decided to kill their new-born daughters (Miller, 1997). The discrimination with female child remained prevalent during the whole 20th century, but only the methods evolved with time. During the 1980’s, the advent and easy accessibility of sex determination technology has contributed to a significant increase in the number of sex selective abortions in Punjab and all over North India (George, 2006). In fact, during the last decades sex- selective abortions have largely replaced female infanticide as a method of eliminating females in India (Patel, 2007). Kulkarni (2007) estimates that during the period of 2001- 2005, 236 thousand sex selective abortions were conducted in Punjab only, which accounts for 20.1% of the total female births in the state. According to The Asian Age (2003) report, and based on a study by the Chandigarh Institute for Development and Communication, every ninth household in the Punjab state acknowledged sex-selective abortion conducted with the use of ante-natal SD tests between 2002 and 2003 (as cited in Patel 2007). Urban settings, higher education of mothers, higher birth order of daughters and economic prosperity correlate with increased incidence of sex-selective abortion (Das Gupta 1987; George 2006). Following the sex ratio approach, on the basis of available 2011 census data on religious communities, we have estimated the number of “missing girls” from the Indian Sikh community. By using the sex-ratio of the Indian Christian population as a benchmark, we have calculated that one million females were missing in the age group

• f 0-34 years in 2011 (see Figure 4), which accounts for 17.2% of the total female

population of the Sikh community in the same age group. The highest number of missing girls is in the age groups of 15 to 19 years (219 thousand) and 10 to 14 years (207 thousand). The increasing paucity of females in the marital and reproductive age

group (15 to 45 years) is a major concern for the community, which can pose a threat to its social and demographic reproduction in the near future. Figure 4: The estimated number of missing girls in Indian Sikh community, 2011.

Source: Own elaboration with data form Census of India, 2011.

Women Education and marriage market According to the 2011 census of India, the literacy rate of Sikhs was 75.4%, which was slightly higher than the national average of 73.0%. The male and female literacy rate was 80.0% and 70.3%, respectively. The male literacy rate was little less than the national average (80.9%), but the female literacy rate was higher by 6 percentage points than the national average (64.3%). The gender difference in the literacy rate of total Sikh population hides the present reality, as the spread of women’s education is recent and still a huge portion of females above age 30 years have very less education as compared to their counterparts. At the young ages (below 30 years) the share of females is comparatively higher than males in the university education (97 thousand more girls than boys with graduation and above education in 2011) (see Fig. 5). Figure 5: The gender difference of education level among Sikh community (age 7 to 35 years) in India, 2011.

Source: Own elaboration with data form Census of India, 2011.

The spread of education in India, especially women’s education, expected to have an enormous impact on the gender roles and marriage market in the traditional Indian society (Kashyap et al. 2015). Education has become an essential criterion in the selection of marriage partners, sometimes even more important than the castes (Varma, 1998). The Sikh community was not immune to these social changes. The more educated Sikh women now have started to demand their rights to take part in the labour market, to go abroad for studies and work, and to choose their marriage partner. As in the traditional Sikh society females were limited to housekeeping and used to marry with highly educated males (Kapur, 1973) and men in return were not willing to marry girls who were more educated than they were, the marriage market was functioning well with the low education of females as compared to males. But, in the past two decades, with the spread of female education and the consistent better performance of girls in higher studies, now a new problem has emerged for the well-educated females to find suitable matches in the community. According to last three NHF surveys, the educational hypergamy has been decreased from 37% in 1998 to 32% in 2005 and the homogamy has been increased from 53% to 58%, during the same period (see Figure 6). Figure 6: Gender educational gap among Sikh couples in India.

Source: own elaboration, with data from NFHS, 1992, 1998 and 2005, India.

The rise of female education has an impact on the age at first marriage also. The mean age at first marriage in the year 2005 for the illiterate females was 17 years and that for the females with secondary or higher studies was 19.3 years. Social Capital in Diaspora and Marriage market Sikhs have a long tradition of emigration, which started during the Colonial Period. In the British Raj, they migrated to several British colonies in South East Asia and Africa as indentured labours, professional workers, civil servants and armed personnel. After the independence of India and the partition of Punjab in 1947, thousands of Sikhs migrated to western countries, especially the UK (Tatla, 1999). The waves of emigration continued for the next decades, as it became an important part of the Sikh

• society. In the middle class Sikh families, the elder sons were supposed to take care of

the land and the younger sons were encouraged to join the armed forces or emigrate in the search of work opportunities and a better life (Mcleod, 1989). Owing to the political unrest in Punjab, after the operation Blue star in 1984, this emigration reached to its peak in the 1990’s (Dhillion, 2007). At present the Sikh diaspora composed of estimated 2 million people living in more than 50 countries around the globe. The majority of Sikhs outside India lives in Canada, the USA and the UK (for more detail, see Garha

and Domingo, 2017), but their number is also increasing in many European countries (Myrvold and Jacobsen, 2011). The present Sikh Diaspora is a product of different waves of emigration and has a long history of evolution. Owing to the different working, living and legal conditions regarding immigrants at the host countries, it has grown with unequal pace at different

• destinations. As a result, it is not a socio-economically and demographically

homogeneous unit around the globe; rather it has its centre (which at present is in Canada) and periphery (which includes the new destination of Sikh immigrants in Southern Europe and Middle East). The territorialized symbolic social capital (Bourdieu, 1978) concerning the neighbourhood, where the Sikh immigrants live in each diaspora country (especially in the periphery), in general, can be classified as the neighbourhoods of foreign immigrants, unskilled workers or poor people. However, the symbolic capital, referring to the country that the migrant uses and for which he or she is mainly valued at the origin, is strongly hierarchical. In this way the Sikh immigrants can benefit or be harmed by the symbolic capital attributed to the diaspora country in India, even more than the real opportunities of upward social mobility in that country. According to interviewees, all the major Sikh settlements in the diaspora occupy a different position in the hierarchy of perceived social capital assigned to them, which affects their position in the list of the most favoured destinations for new emigrants (see figure 7). This perceived hierarchy has a dynamic nature. Initially, the first major destination of Sikh immigrants -the UK-, hold the top place in the hierarchy, but later

• n, when the mass emigrant flow diverted to Canada and the Sikh community

flourished there, the top position shifted to Canada. Most recently the USA has also emerged as a desirable destination for the new Sikh emigrants from India and the rest of the diaspora. During the Oil Boom of 1970’s, a huge number of Sikhs also migrated to

Gulf countries, but due to the low perceived social capital attributed to the gulf countries, this part of diaspora always remained at the bottom of the hierarchy of most desired destinations. Figure 7: The perceived social capital hierarchy of the different destination countries in the Sikh diaspora.

Source: own elaboration based on semi structured interviews conducted by the author during 2016-2017.

Following the political unrest, mass Sikh emigration of young males was started in 1990’s. Due to the religious and cultural differences with the destination societies, the number of interracial and inter-religious marriages among the Sikh emigrants and hosts remained very low. Generally, the Sikh emigrants return to their own communities (caste and clans) for marriages (Mooney, 2006), but with the increasing number of Sikh population in the Centre of Diaspora, like The UK and Canada, the transnational marriages are losing their importance (Qureshi, 2015). The hierarchy of perceived social capital in the diaspora has a tremendous effect on the Sikh marriage market in India and

• abroad. The upper position in this hierarchy enhances the possibility to get a suitable

match in the community; on the contrary, the lower position cuts the chances to get a

• partner. According to our interviewees, in the Sikh community, it is now commonly

accepted that the position in the diaspora has become even more important than the caste, education level and sometimes even the age of individuals. Along with the

availability of brides, the amount of dowry also directly correlated with one’s position in the diaspora hierarchy. The young Sikh girls, who dream to emigrate after marriage, also prefer men who are settled in the centre of diaspora i.e. Canada or USA. Sikh marriage market in India and Diaspora In the Sikh community the institution of marriage is of prime importance, as the founder of Sikh religion, Guru Nanak Dev, established that the marriage is essential for the social and religious reproduction of the community and the married life is the best way of living in any human society. Celibacy, which is not entirely prohibited, strongly discouraged by the Sikh doctrine. In the Sikh community, like in most of the Indian religious communities, marriages are universal, religious and mostly arranged by

• families. It is more of a cultural phenomenon rather than an individual one in that

personal happiness is generally given much lesser weight at the time of union formation than the traditional beliefs (Goswami, 2012). The most frequently observed pattern with respect to union formation among Sikhs is marriage among similar, i.e., unions based on the similarities between partners regarding their caste, social class, level of education, employment, religion, ethnic group, family background and place of residence. These factors also play a major role to determine the timing of marriage, age at marriage, amount of dowry and the age gap between spouses. In the last three censuses of India (1991, 2001 and 2011), the proportion of never married Sikh males at age 50 was remained around 1.3% of the total population, but that of females has been increased from 0.09% in 1991 to 0.54% in 2011. Although till date, marriage is universal in the Sikh context, a consistent increasing trend in respect of mean age at marriage has been recorded in the Sikh community. The median age at marriage for the males and females has been increased from 20.1 and 19.5 years in the year 1992 to 23.8 and 19.9 years in the year 2005, respectively. However, the

aggregate figures related to mean age at marriage show only minor changes. An analysis of 2011 census data on religious communities clearly shows that for those who have been married for the last nine years preceding the census (i.e. married during 2002-2011) marriages remain mainly confined to higher ages (24.8 years for males and 22.3 years for females) as compared to those married for twenty years or more preceding the census (22.7 for males and 19.9 for females). Throughout the world, men tend to marry younger women. The age gap is narrowing in developed countries, but remains high in many developing ones. Age hypergamy is socially more accepted, and presumably more common, form of Sikh

• unions. According to 2005 NHF survey, in 41.8% of Sikh couples, males were 1 to 3

years older than females, and in only 5.1% couple’s males were younger than females (see Figure 8). When compared with 1992 and 1998 NHF surveys, the age gap between spouses has been reduced considerably as the share of couples with the age difference

• f 7 or more years has reduced from 25.7% in 1992 to 16.9% in 2005 (see Figure 8).

Figure 8: The spousal age difference among Sikh couples in India.

Source: own elaboration, with data from NFHS, 1992, 1998 and 2005, India.

Expected Marriage squeeze: A marriage market develops around preferences for mates of different ages, and we study this market as changes in age distributions change the availability of mates

(Keyfitz, 1973, p. 89). In the Indian Sikh community, due to the rapid decline in fertility the successive cohorts become smaller and smaller. Since most of the males want to marry younger females, the small size of successive cohorts makes difficult for all males to get a partner (Esteve and Cabré, 2005). Before 1990’s the successive cohorts were bigger than the previous ones, so for the existing males the number of available females in the marriage market was bigger, but during the last decades, as explained above, in the Sikh community the size of birth cohorts has been reduced significantly and the sex ratio remained high in favour of males. Hence, if the age hyper-gamy exists the Marriage squeeze will not affect the Sikh males born before 1990 (above age 20 in 2011), but the Marriage squeeze index (MSI) will increase from 0.10 for the age group 15 to 20 years, to 0.42 for the age group of 5 to 9 years. But if the people move towards homogamy, as in the case of present Sikh community, the effect of Marriage squeeze for males will be distributed till the higher ages and it will affect the entire male

• population. Even in the situation of complete homogamy, the MSI will be higher (0.29)

for the generation of males who born after 1995 (see Figure 9). Figure 9: Marriage squeeze index based on hyper-gamy and homogamy among Sikh population of India, 2011

Source: Own elaboration with data form Census of India, 2011.

The Diaspora discourse on Sikh demography and Marriage squeeze

The dilemma of Religious leaders: Religious leaders are trusted and respected in communities throughout the world. In many South Asian and the Middle East countries, people turn to them for guidance on family and personal matters, including decisions about health, education, livelihoods, marriages and roles in civic society. Along with their well-established networks of volunteers and community groups, they have the potential to promote and sustain positive changes in the social norms, attitudes, and behaviours that affect the socio- demographic reproduction of the community. In the Sikh community this role is performed by the Priests and the members of Gurudwara (Sikh Temples) managing

• committees. Gurudwara is not only a place of worship for Sikhs rather their most of the

social life revolves around it (Jacobsen, 2012). During the last decades, the rapidly decreasing fertility and the problem of sex selection at birth has been raised by many religious leaders throughout India (Times of India, 2015) and in the diaspora, which shows the seriousness of the situation regarding depopulation and sex imbalance in the

• community. In diaspora it has also become a regular part of public discourse in

community gatherings. This preoccupation was also expressed by a gurudwara committee member as…

“The Sikh Gurus gave equal position for women in the society, but still some Sikh families are engaged in female feticide. People kill their daughters before birth, so that they don’t have to bear the burden of dowry. It is very shameful and will surely hurt the community`s growth…” (Gurnam Singh, 55, Gurudwara head, Rome, Italy.)

As the effects of the male marriage squeeze are becoming more and more visible, the religious leaders are also worried about the smooth functioning of the Sikh marriage market. In the Sikh community, the marriage is always considered as a family matter and the honour of a family in the society largely depends on their marriage allies.

The community leaders always encourage the young men and women to follow the parent’s decision regarding their marriage, but the control over women is much higher than the males, because the daughter’s marriage is a matter of prestige for the Sikh families. “One thing which I want to make clear to all Sikh boys and girls that before marrying out of the community you should think twice about our values, religion and society. Especially for girls, they should think about the respect of their parents in the society and have faith in their parents…” (Mukhtiar Singh, 49, Gurudwara member, Hospitalet de Llobregat, Spain) The permission and social acceptance of inter-religion marriages has become a major issue of debate in the community. Especially in the diaspora where Sikhs are working hard to preserve their cultural and social identity by protecting their religious customs, physical appearance and beliefs, inter-religious marriages have been seen as a threat to the community`s reproduction. The dilemma, which the community leaders are passing through, is expressed by a Gurudwara committee member in Barcelona as… “I don’t think that the young boys and girls should be allowed to marry outside the community, because it will create a problem for the maintenance of the purity of religion and community. A Spanish mother will not teach the Gurbani [religious text] to the kids, she will rather allow them to smoke and drink [alcohol]…” (Harinder Singh, 48, Madrid, Spain). The situation has become so gloomy that some of the leaders doubt the community’s capacity to return back to the normal structure and growth… “What our people have done [female foeticide] in the last decades will have a disastrous effect on the community. The damage done is irreparable and the

coming generations will have to pay for it. There is no any ultimate solution for this… (Paramjit Singh, 47, Barcelona, Spain) The Sikh Parents’ nightmare In the Sikh community, now most of the couples want only one or two kids, and in that also a male child is highly desirable. Hence, the fertility is decreasing rapidly and the sex ratio is becoming skewed in the favour of males. Most of the Sikh parents put the responsibility on the increasing cost of living and social customs, like dowry and patrilineal setup. “In small families everybody wants at least one son, so when the second child is female, people often go for abortion.” (Sarabjeet Kaur, 32, Roma, Italy). Dowry, which was the main reason for sex selected abortions, consists of money and other goods given by the bride’s family to the groom’s family, at the time of the

• wedding. This practice is illegal under the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961, but socially

justified as the final expense a girl’s parents must bear before she becomes the responsibility of her husband’s family (Sarkaria 2009). The rampant commercialization

• f marriage has turned dowry into a pervasive and coercive practice that transgresses

divisions of caste, education and class (Patel 2007; Purewal 2010). It has affected the Sikh society to such an extent that a son is seen as more of an ‘asset’, while a daughter is seen as a ‘liability’, since she will eventually leave the family home to move in with her husband’s family. To avoid the expenses of marriage and dowry people abort the female child. “No parents want to kill their daughters, but when they thought about the dowry, they do this heinous crime. If we want to stop this, we have to stop the custom of dowry first…” (Manjeet Kaur, 32, Mallorca, Spain) There are people who also blame the diaspora community for the transformation

• f dowry to a status symbol. Diaspora Sikh families give huge sums of dowry to their

daughters to show their socioeconomic status in the community, but while doing this they encourage a bad custom that leads to the death of many unborn girls. “Yes, there is a big problem of dowry and the diaspora Sikhs have exacerbated

• it. They give huge dowry to their daughters to show their status in the

community, but they make difficult the life of other parents who don’t afford this.” (Gurwinder Singh, 18, Valencia, Spain). In the Sikh community, the marriage of children is a responsibility of parents and they play a huge role in all the events starting from match making to religious marriage customs, both in India and in Diaspora (Ballard, 1990). The parents of young adult males have been facing a problem in finding a suitable match for their sons in the

• community. This problem has been exacerbated in the peripheral diaspora, where the

number of eligible girls is even more limited and they are following the traditions of their homeland society. Most of the parents are in a situation of dilemma as they think that the inter-religious marriages will be the only solution left, which is not much desirable. “I have no problem with mixed marriages, but these are not durable. In Spain,

• nly 10% live their whole life with the same partner, in this society, it is normal,

but for us it is a big problem. No Indian parents want that their children go through this, so they rightly force them to marry within the community…” (Balbir Singh, 56, Girona, Spain) The problem is not only limited to males, the parents of more educated girls are also facing a problem to find well educated grooms for their daughters in the

• community. As the number of high educated females is increasing faster than the males,

the search of more educated grooms is becoming difficult. In the views of Nabar (1995)

“women also have to be careful with education, if they don’t want to be at a

• disadvantage. That means, however, that it is a risk for a woman to be “too” educated,

because if she is, she must look for an even more educated man. In addition, she will be quite old for marriage and less prospect grooms are available because the majority of them will be already married”. Sikh parents sometimes feel forced to marry their more educated daughters of less educated men and it often brings conflicts in the family. “As parents of well-educated daughters, we are in a situation of dilemma, now my daughters have finished their studies and are in the age of marriage, but we are not getting any equally educated boy in our community. As their age is increasing, our worries also…” (Harjot Kaur, 46, Barcelona, Spain) The generational conflicts are also on the rise, as most parents expect that their children should accept their decision regarding their life partners. Mostly daughters are put under enormous pressure to accept partners who are not equally educated as they

• are. If a girl goes against the will of her parents it becomes a matter of shame for the

family and considered to be as the failure of parents. “I love my daughter very much. If I give her a proper education of our cultural and social norms, she will never think about marrying a boy of other community against my wish. If she does so, then it is not only her fault, it’s a failure of my education and guidance also…” (Sukhchain Singh, 43, Valencia, Spain) Low-education no bride, high-education no groom The effect of marriage squeeze for future brides and grooms in the diaspora will depend upon the hierarchy of perceived social capital. Sikh immigrants in the destinations with low social capital, like Spain and Italy, will suffer more from this marriage squeeze, as most of the available brides will choose the grooms settled in the destinations with high

social capital like Canada, USA or the UK. This preoccupation is already visible in the discourse of unmarried Sikh males in Italy and Spain. “In Punjab most of the girls want to marry men settled in Canada, UK or USA. Parents give huge dowries to catch Canadian or US grooms for their daughters… People from Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece or Dubai have no value in India. No any girl wants to marry with men from these countries…” (Gurpal Singh, 27, Agriculture worker in Latina, Italy.) In the past decades, owing to the high income differences, it was very easy for the diaspora grooms to find a suitable bride in India, but due to the endemic shortage of females and the changing social atmosphere (especially female education), the supply of brides is declining considerably. The countries which are in the periphery of diaspora (like the Middle East and southern Europe) with low perceived social capital are at the worst position in the Sikh marriage market. The low skilled and poorly educated young Sikh men in the countries like Spain and Italy, fears to not get a suitable bride for them in India. “I don’t think I will get a bride in our community. My family is searching for a suitable girl for the last three years, but they didn’t get anyone. When they inform the girl’s family that I live in Italy, they refuse. Now I have told my mother to find girl in other communities also, but still no hope…” (Jeevan Singh, 29, salesman in Rome, Italy.) The low level of male education in the peripheral countries also exacerbates their position in the marriage market. As explained by interviewees, among Sikhs the recent immigration has aggravated the gender difference in education level. The young males mostly emigrate without completing their studies, while the girls who were not allowed to emigrate alone before marriage, complete their education and get well ahead

• f boys in higher studies. This widening education imbalance and the rigidity on the

gender roles perspective is creating a situation where the low educated males are not finding any suitable partner for them, as the number of females is getting smaller in succeeding cohorts and they are more educated than males. “I left India when I was only 16; hence I have not completed my studies… now in Punjab girls are more educated, I fear that I will not get a bride because more educated girls demand high educated boy, at least a BA…” (Harjinder Singh, 31, restaurant worker in Barcelona, Spain.) Similarly, for the girls, the shortage of well-educated boys creating a situation where they have no other choice than to accept partners, who are well below as compared to their own education level. It sometimes puts them in a conflict with their

• wn values and that of their family members…

“I have done Masters in India and my husband is having only primary education, sometimes we have problems because of our values and educational gap. Initially I was frustrated, but now I have accepted it as my fate…” (Savneet Kaur, 32, Rome, Italy) As the native Sikh community is failing to provide suitable partners for all, now some people have also started to look for partners in their new host communities. This is seen as a remedy for the marriage squeeze, but how it will affect the community’s socio-demographic reproduction is still a matter of debate. As the problem for Sikhs is not only the exogamy, but in the host marriage market women are more educated and they have a different perspective about the gender roles, so the less educated Indians have to look for the girls who are less educated like them in the host society, which will affect their social mobility.

“If I don’t get any bride among Sikhs, I will marry here; even there are good people in this society also. My parents told me that I can marry someone here if I wish to do so…” (Gagandeep Singh, 28, factory worker in Brescia, Italy.) Debate: Socio-demographic reproduction crisis a generational challenge. In the Sikh community, religion is the main thread that binds the community and provides it a unique identity. Religious believes pass from one generation to the next through families and other socio-religious institutions. Marriage provides foundation for family formation and hence it is a necessary ingredient for the socio-demographic

• reproduction. The recent marriage squeeze can hinder the process of family formation

and push the community into a crisis. The solution to this crisis largely depends on the capacity of the Sikh community to change their demographic behaviour and social practices in a new social and demographic context. The first attempt should be made to improve the sex-ratio at birth by controlling the sex-selective abortion. The government of India has made laws (Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostics Techniques (PCPNDT) Act in 1994 and its amendment in 2003) to control it, but these laws were not implemented properly and often neglected by the small maternity clinics that provide illegal abortion facilities to the willing parents. Now it has become evident that the female foeticide cannot be controlled by only making laws, we have to address the main socioeconomic causes of the female foeticide, like

• Dowry. The government of India has also passed a law against dowry in 1961, but it is

still prevalent in the Sikh community. In the past dowry was given to secure women’s right on her parent’s wealth, but in the last decades, with the wealth accumulated by the Sikhs in the diaspora, it has become a status symbol for the families and the prime cause

• f selective abortions.

From the past experiences, we know that some of the other countries characterised by strong patriarchal social systems, gender-biased sex selection and distorted sex ratios at birth, like South Korea have succeeded in reversing this trend, from a sex ratio at birth of 862 in 1993–1994 (Chung and Das Gupta, 2007), to a normal SRB at present. This rapid normalisation of the sex ratio at birth is attributed to a combination of harsh penalties for the violation of the law prohibiting disclosure of the sex of the foetus, massive media campaigns intended to raise awareness of the law and penalties for its violation, and policies and programmes intended to reduce discrimination against females (Kim, 2013; Chung and Das Gupta, 2007). If the Sikh community also wants to achieve it, they should follow the pattern of South Korea by implementing properly the female protection laws and abolishment of the social customs like dowry that hinders the female upliftment in the Sikh society. It is widely believed that the prenatal screening could eventually favour females, even if used to exercise preference of sons. For instance, men could be the ultimate loser as women become increasingly scarce (Park and Cho, 1995), but according to our view, it is true for the societies where women have more freedom of selection, in the societies, like the Sikhs, where women still don’t enjoy these rights, their scarcity can result in the increasing control over their freedom. Here we can find the asymmetries of power between gender and class in the Sikh marriage market, the lower class and caste men and the highly educated women are in the most vulnerable position, as they will have to adjust to their marriage preferences. By controlling sex selected abortions, we can secure sex-ratio balance for the coming generations, but the generations of “missing girls”, will have to deal with the scarcity of women in the society in one or another way. Adaptation can occur both in the reformulation of religious practices (especially in Sikh marriage norms, which force

all Sikhs to marry within the community) and adjustments with respect to the new demographic challenges (like low fertility and shortage of females) by controlling the sex selection at birth, changing the age at marriage, allowing inter-religion marriages, flexibility of the age difference between spouses, the social acceptance of celibacy and breaking with the traditional marriage customs. But the permission of inter religious marriages has its own risks related to the maintenance of the purity of religion and socio-cultural reproduction of the community. In any case, it is a generational challenge for the Sikhs born during the first decade of the 21st century. From the discourse in the peripheral diaspora about the changing demography and Sikh marriage market in India, we can conclude that they are passing through a critical phase of social reproduction and identity preservation crisis; where 1) the community leaders are worried about the social practices of dowry and the female foeticide, maintenance of the homogeneity of Sikh families and transfer of religious identity for the coming generations; 2) The parents of young adult males and females are finding very hard to get good matches for their children and facing generational conflicts in the cases of mis-matches; and 3) the unmarried males and females are worried about their future, where they feel forced to live their life alone (in the case of low profile males or high educated females) or accept a hypergamic marriage. In this paper, we have explored the current situation of the Sikh community in India and Diaspora and its impact on their socio-demographic reproduction. In the future, with the help of population projections and marriage simulation models, we have planned to project the growth of the Sikh community and the intensity of the marriage squeeze for the coming 50 years. In that we will discuss in detail about the demographic adjustments which the Sikh community can make to deal with the increasing marriage squeeze.

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