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There is some evidence to suggest that the gender differential in mortality in India is on the decline. Conforming to the expected biological norm, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala were the only two states in India where child mortality was lower among females according to both SRS and the Census estimates around 1981. The National Family Health Survey (NFHS) conducted in 1992 revealed lower levels of infant and child mortality among females than among males in Andhra Pradesh, India. Deaths during the first month are primarily due to endogenous factors which are not possibly gender specific such as birth order and age of the mother. The available estimate of Crude Death Rate for the resident population in Andhra Pradesh is slightly lesser than the Sample Registration System estimates. The underestimation of deaths are severe in NFHS in the neonatal stages. The estimated low levels of infant mortality rate in NFHS compared to that in SRS is mainly due to the underestimation in neonatal mortality.

The parish records of Syrian Catholics and Latin Catholics in twentieth-century Kerala, India, can be used to assess the seasonal fluctuations and interdependence of such vital events as births, deaths, and marriages in the short run. That the effect of seasonality has been more pronounced among the Syrian Catholic community than among the Latin Catholic community is due largely to socioeconomic, cultural, religious, and, more important, occupational differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]