Rising temperature may shift sex ratios at birth, analysis of five million births finds

"Temperature and sex ratios at birth," a new study led by researchers at the Department of Sociology at the University of Oxford and published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, provides new evidence that higher temperatures can influence the sex ratio at birth, with important implications for population health and gender balance in a warming world. The study analyzes more than five million births across 33 sub-Saharan African countries and India. By linking large-scale survey data with high-resolution temperature records, the authors examine how exposure to heat during pregnancy affects the sex ratio at birth.