than deficit: the ratio of women to men is 1.02. On the other hand, there are disproportionately large numbers of missing women in India and mainland China. Researchers argue that the prevalence of "missing women" is often intertwined with a society's culture and history, and as a result, it is difficult to create broad policy solutions. For example, Jafri argues that the relegation of women to an inferior position in Muslim society perpetuates the "missing women" issue. On the other hand, there is evidence suggesting that even in the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries, Western European countries did not face sex ratios as skewed as the ones we see today in various developing countries. Even between India and Bangladesh, two countries with similar levels of education and gender disparity today, there are differences in missing women: the same measures to improve female welfare in Bangladesh do much worse in India. Kabeer argues that this is the case because India is stratified by social caste, while Bangladesh is more homogenous; as a result, progressive ideas such as improving the welfare of women can more easily disseminate in Bangladesh. Regardless of cultural variation, Sen argues that in general, policies aimed to address education and women's employment opportunities outside the home may improve the missing women situation and fight the stigma attached to female children. Much research has been conducted in this area. Education Findings from the Indian Census in 2001 suggest that women's increased educational attainment was associated with the rise in the female-to-male sex ratio of India. Similarly, Dito's research in Ethiopia shows that in families where females are highly educated, have many brothers, and are close in age to their husbands, women tend to be more well-off, leading to lower counts of missing women. Thus, in some countries, increasing access to education has helped On the other hand, later studies of India showed that increasing education may actually worsen the missing women phenomenon. Increasing female education may actually increase the rate of sex-selective abortion and thus increase the male-to-female sex ratio, as more well-educated female adults realize that opportunities in their society for their male children are much better than opportunities for their female children. In addition, female children are seen as a cost on the family because of their lack of employment opportunities, the paying of dowry, and their limited ability to own property. Mukherjee argues that this is further