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China Needs to Embrace Its Feminine Side (NYT)

Originally posted on sciy.org by Ron Anastasia on Mon 15 Jan 2007 11:54 AM PST  

Chinese girl

She may have enjoyed herself at the Beijing Spring Festival, but wait ’til she hits marrying age: She’ll have a huge surplus of men to choose from. (Photo: Jason Lee/Reuters)

This came down the pike this morning, but is worth highlighting: A national report in China indicates that the country could face a rather staggering gender imbalance over the next 15 years, with as many as 30 million more men of marriageable age than women by 2020.

Social instability is one potential outcome, according to the report, which was issued by State Population and Family Planning Commission (English version of the agency’s Web page).

So what gives?

Well, sex ratios globally do tend to favor a slight surplus of boys, so that’s not a big shocker. Industrialized nations typically produce between 105 to 107 boys for every 100 girls. (The C.I.A. World Fact Book has an online field listing of sex ratios broken down by country.)

China’s Family Planning Commission, however, found that there are currently 118 boys born for every 100 girls, and in some regions like the southern provinces of Guangdong and Hainan, according to an Associated Press report on the study, “the ratio has ballooned to 130 boys to 100 girls.”

The cold calculus behind all this — and behind the 2020 projection — is twofold: China has a one-child policy designed to control population growth, and boys are simply favored over girls. As BBC News points out:

Abortions on female fetuses are believed to be widespread as couples, particularly in rural areas, hope for a son who will look after them in their old age.

Such abortions are, of course, illegal, but according to The A.P., the government concedes that the practice remains common.

One solution, from the report, according to the BBC: “We need to develop a ‘movement to embrace girls.’”


7 comments so far...

  • 1.

    China does seem to have a basic problem with its burgeoning population and, from the cold standpoint of animal reproduction, males are the more redundant of the two sexes. The key to population growth is the number of fertile females in a population, not the number of males.

    The proposed “solution” to this imbalance sounds ill-conceived, bordering on thoughtlessness. Granted, draconian measures may well have been pursued to this point, but, the less harmful course might be to leave well enough alone.

    — Posted by Sam Thornton

  • 2.

    I don’t think they are too concerned about underpopulation.

    — Posted by Bob

  • 3.

    China’s sex imbalance in favor of women is immaterial because contemporary marriage in most industrial societies is too unstable for men to take the risk. In the West divorce law is so stacked in favor of women marriage for men means betting the emotional and financial ranch.

    — Posted by Mark Klein, M.D.

  • 4.

    After some hesitation, think it’s worth adding this to my above comment because marriage and raising children are the best life has to offer when reasonably stable and affordable.

    Writing from Israel where I’ve been for several days visiting my daughter who just blessed me with another grandchild. She and husband live in a ultra-orthodox community (haredi) where enjoying family life trumps all. Their world absent the religious orientation is very much like how things were in New York’s Jewish and Christian communities when I came of age in the 1940s and 1950s.

    I remember the beginning of the end of that world starting in the 1950s when consumerism got rolling and idealistic but poorly thought through mass public works programs like “slum clearance” destroyed whole neighborhoods scattering families.

    Think I was about 14 or 15 when New York’s Blue Laws (Sunday closing) was declared unconstitutional. My immediate reaction was unrestrained Sunday shopping would end family visiting. Like most families back then we visited relatives every Sunday.

    Shabat here ended a few hours ago. Felt transported back in time spending the day with the family, receiving visitors, and playing with and reading to the grandchildren.

    I think the reason stable family life is vanishing is people just want more from life can be reasonably expected. Romance is exhilerating but inevitably short lived. Better marriage be predicated on more modest underpinnings like sexual attraction and friendship.

    Materialism fueled by unlimited consumer credit is the other main problem. In the end too much credit ends up creating mountains of free floating cash grown so large housing and higher education costs no longer have any rational relationship to income.
    My guess is many marriages fail because couples work too many hours ending up with too little time to enjoy their marriages and the children.

    Happy when I leave in a few days knowing my daughter is one of the fortunate few women in today’s world to enjoy a lifestyle largely unaffordable in most America today.

    If I had my druthers, the American credit and monetary policy would cease being a drunken tailgate party.

    — Posted by Mark Klein, M.D.

  • 5.

    Basic economics are being overlooked here. In 10 to 20 years, as the results of aborting female fetuses plays out, females will be scarce and therefore valuable. There will be a premium on a vagina, with many males pursuing scarce females. Of course, this may lead to population reduction of an unforseen character.

    — Posted by Larry

  • 6.

    Girls will be embraced when they become important to the Chinese people. Right now, because of the society, that is not the case. In 2020, girls will be in high demand but not because of some government policy of girl embracement. They will be in high demand because of the laws of supply and demand - they will become important again so that the society can produce more males. This is what happens when governments don’t believe freedom, liberty and inherent rights of people.

    — Posted by Dave!

  • 7.

    The gender preference towards boys, given China’s one child per family policy, has it’s own logic, however flawed and controversial. In many patriarchal cultures, not just in Asia, women, who are not traditionally thought of as bread-winners, marry and depart to live in their husband’s domicile. So if you are Chinese parents with a daughter, that later marries and leaves the home, who will care for you in your old age?

    But the times, they are a changing. I saw a PBS documentary about call center workers in India. One of the workers profiled was a girl from a lower caste, who’s father wasn’t exactly thrilled that she was female. That was until her income started subsidizing everything from her little brother’s allowance to the groceries. Then all of a sudden, she was the pride of the family. While the forces of supply and demand will ultimately place a higher premium on girls, given their limited numbers; women themselves, will raise their own profile in Chinese society through education and earning power, just as Western women have.

    — Posted by isolde

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