ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Sex ratio

Sex ratio refers to the number of boys and girls in a group or population. So, imagine you're playing with a bunch of toys, and you have to count how many are pink and how many are blue. If you have ten toys, and six of them are pink, and four are blue, the sex ratio for that group of toys would be 6:4 or 3:2. This means for every three pink toys, there are two blue toys.

In animals, including humans, sex ratio is often expressed as the number of males to females. So, if you have a group of ten people, and six of them are boys, while four are girls, then the sex ratio would be 6:4 or 3:2.

The sex ratio can differ in different populations, meaning that some groups may have more boys while others have more girls. This can happen due to various factors like genetic and environmental factors, birth control methods, and cultural preferences. Some countries have a preference for having babies of a certain sex, which can lead to an uneven sex ratio in the population.

Overall, sex ratio helps us understand how many boys and girls there are in a group or population, which can be important for understanding things like reproduction, evolution, and genetics.