India has a skewed sex ratio, with far fewer females than males. The normal global sex ratio is approximately 1.07 males to every female at birth, but in India an estimated 10 million girls went missing between 1981-2005 due to factors like neglect, female infanticide, and sex-selective abortion. The low sex ratio is caused by cultural perceptions of females as economic burdens rather than assets, as well as internalized patriarchal views of female worth, though the specific causes vary regionally within India.