100 Million "Missing" Asian Women

So this from Slate has nothing to do with law firms, but it's too delicious an economic commentary to pass up.   Asking, "What is economics, anyway?," the piece proceeds to analyze (and largely debunk) a sinister theory first put forth 15 years ago by Amartya Sen that there were 100-million "missing women" in Asia compared to what one would expect if boys and girls were born in equal numbers.  And  Sen darkly insinuated that this was attributable to the forces of misogyny in general, including female infanticide and even forced export of prostitutes. For want of a more convincing explanation, this has remained accepted, if still lore.

Comes now another economist to put forth a different, and innocent explanation.

One's human reaction is primarily relief that an alleged pattern of atrocities is evidently no such thing; the reaction of homo economicus is to be reminded of the uses, and abuses, of statistics.