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IMAGINE you are one half of a young couple expecting your first child in a fast-growing, poor country. You are part of the new middle class; your income is rising; you want a small family. But traditional mores hold sway around you, most important in the preference for sons over daughters. Perhaps hard physical labour is still needed for the family to make its living. Perhaps only sons may inherit land. Perhaps a daughter is deemed to join another family on marriage and you want someone to care for you when you are old. Perhaps she needs a dowry.
Now imagine that you have had an ultrasound scan; it costs $12, but you can afford that. The scan says the unborn child is a girl. You yourself would prefer a boy; the rest of your family clamours for one. You would never dream of killing a baby daughter, as they do out in the villages. But an abortion seems different. What do you do?
For millions of couples, the answer is: abort the daughter, try for a son. In China and northern India more than 120 boys are being born for every 100 girls. Nature dictates that slightly more males are born than females to offset boys’ greater susceptibility to infant disease. But nothing on this scale.
In January 2010 the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) showed what can happen to a country when girl babies don’t count. Within ten years, the academy said, one in five young men would be unable to find a bride because of the dearth of young women—a figure unprecedented in a country at peace.
The number is based on the sexual discrepancy among people aged 19 and below. According to CASS, China in 2020 will have 30m-40m more men of this age than young women. For comparison, there are 23m boys below the age of 20 in Germany, France and Britain combined and around 40m American boys and young men. So within ten years, China faces the prospect of having the equivalent of the whole young male population of America, or almost twice that of Europe’s three largest countries, with little prospect of marriage, untethered to a home of their own and without the stake in society that marriage and children provide.
Gendercide—to borrow the title of a 1985 book by Mary Anne Warren—is often seen as an unintended consequence of China’s one-child policy, or as a product of poverty or ignorance. But that cannot be the whole story. The surplus of bachelors—called in China guanggun, or “bare branches”— seems to have accelerated between 1990 and 2005, in ways not obviously linked to the one-child policy, which was introduced in 1979. And, as is becoming clear, the war against baby girls is not confined to China.
Parts of India have sex ratios as skewed as anything in its northern neighbour. Other East Asian countries—South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan—have peculiarly high numbers of male births. So, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, have former communist countries in the Caucasus and the western Balkans. Even subsets of America’s population are following suit, though not the population as a whole.
The real cause, argues Nick Eberstadt, a demographer at the American Enterprise Institute, a think-tank in Washington, DC, is not any country’s particular policy but “the fateful collision between overweening son preference, the use of rapidly spreading prenatal sex-determination technology and declining fertility.” These are global trends. And the selective destruction of baby girls is global, too.
The war on baby girls: Gendercide | The Economist
IMAGINE you are one half of a young couple expecting your first child in a fast-growing, poor country. You are part of the new middle class; your income is rising; you want a small family. But traditional mores hold sway around you, most important in the preference for sons over daughters. Perhaps hard physical labour is still needed for the family to make its living. Perhaps only sons may inherit land. Perhaps a daughter is deemed to join another family on marriage and you want someone to care for you when you are old. Perhaps she needs a dowry.
Now imagine that you have had an ultrasound scan; it costs $12, but you can afford that. The scan says the unborn child is a girl. You yourself would prefer a boy; the rest of your family clamours for one. You would never dream of killing a baby daughter, as they do out in the villages. But an abortion seems different. What do you do?
For millions of couples, the answer is: abort the daughter, try for a son. In China and northern India more than 120 boys are being born for every 100 girls. Nature dictates that slightly more males are born than females to offset boys greater susceptibility to infant disease. But nothing on this scale.
Gendercide: The worldwide war on baby girls | The Economist
In January 2010 the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) showed what can happen to a country when girl babies dont count. Within ten years, the academy said, one in five young men would be unable to find a bride because of the dearth of young womena figure unprecedented in a country at peace.
The number is based on the sexual discrepancy among people aged 19 and below. According to CASS, China in 2020 will have 30m-40m more men of this age than young women. For comparison, there are 23m boys below the age of 20 in Germany, France and Britain combined and around 40m American boys and young men. So within ten years, China faces the prospect of having the equivalent of the whole young male population of America, or almost twice that of Europes three largest countries, with little prospect of marriage, untethered to a home of their own and without the stake in society that marriage and children provide.
Gendercideto borrow the title of a 1985 book by Mary Anne Warrenis often seen as an unintended consequence of Chinas one-child policy, or as a product of poverty or ignorance. But that cannot be the whole story. The surplus of bachelorscalled in China guanggun, or bare branches seems to have accelerated between 1990 and 2005, in ways not obviously linked to the one-child policy, which was introduced in 1979. And, as is becoming clear, the war against baby girls is not confined to China.
Parts of India have sex ratios as skewed as anything in its northern neighbour. Other East Asian countriesSouth Korea, Singapore and Taiwanhave peculiarly high numbers of male births. So, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, have former communist countries in the Caucasus and the western Balkans. Even subsets of Americas population are following suit, though not the population as a whole.
The real cause, argues Nick Eberstadt, a demographer at the American Enterprise Institute, a think-tank in Washington, DC, is not any countrys particular policy but the fateful collision between overweening son preference, the use of rapidly spreading prenatal sex-determination technology and declining fertility. These are global trends. And the selective destruction of baby girls is global, too.
These are just small excerpts from the articles. Read each article in its entirety to get all the info.
This is the biggest economic threat to China.
The gap between the number of men and women of marriage age is growing. That is not good for the stability of the regime.
This is the biggest economic threat to China.
The gap between the number of men and women of marriage age is growing. That is not good for the stability of the regime.
this has been going on forever....the lesser worth of the female....doesnt matter if its a child or an adult...look at how woman are treated in the medical field...we are no different from other countries...in the lesser value of women
The women will basically with a few exceptions have each one child, the 50 million guys will die not having children (thus population decrease).50 million frustrated guys is not good for the regime.
this has been going on forever....the lesser worth of the female....doesnt matter if its a child or an adult...look at how woman are treated in the medical field...we are no different from other countries...in the lesser value of women
So much for the PERFECT MARKET THEORY, eh?
Life? The only life according to liberals is that sanctioned worth saving by Peta, and that doesn't include humans.this has been going on forever....the lesser worth of the female....doesnt matter if its a child or an adult...look at how woman are treated in the medical field...we are no different from other countries...in the lesser value of women
Maybe if life in general was more important to liberals they wouldn't be stuck with the devaluation of the source of that life.
Life? The only life according to liberals is that sanctioned worth saving by Peta, and that doesn't include humans.this has been going on forever....the lesser worth of the female....doesnt matter if its a child or an adult...look at how woman are treated in the medical field...we are no different from other countries...in the lesser value of women
Maybe if life in general was more important to liberals they wouldn't be stuck with the devaluation of the source of that life.
