Male:female ratio in China

[yorkie_bear]

Hi

I wonder what people think will be the consequences on society, culture and economy of the high disproportion in male-female ratios in China?

- more kidnappings of young girls to be kept as a wife in some far off province?

- increase in sex industry?

- increase in rapes?

- an increasingly restless/frustrated young male population?

any thoughts?

[fatchance]

Just came across this article. Haven't yet had a chance to read it myself, but it looks to be relevant.

Forty Million Missing Girls: Land, Population Controls and Sex Imbalance in Rural China

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=103&ItemID=8891

[zhiaimao]

I wonder what people think will be the consequences on society, culture and economy of the high disproportion in male-female ratios in China?

Lets see how high is the disproportion!

Gender ratio: Birth

2. Taiwan 1.1 male(s)/female

3. Korea, South 1.1 male(s)/female

5. China 1.09 male(s)/female

12. Singapore 1.08 male(s)/female

13. Vietnam 1.08 male(s)/female

16. Hong Kong 1.07 male(s)/female

Source: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/peo_sex_rat_at_bir∫=-1

Gender ratio: Under age of 15

1. Hong Kong 1.14 male(s)/female

2. Korea, South 1.12 male(s)/female

5. China 1.1 male(s)/female

6. Taiwan 1.09 male(s)/female

10. Macau 1.08 male(s)/female

Source: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/peo_sex_rat_und_15_yea∫=-1

Gender ratio: Age of15-64

23. India 1.07 male(s)/female

27. China 1.06 male(s)/female

Source: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/peo_sex_rat_15_64_yea∫=-1

Gender ratio: Total

19. India 1.07 male(s)/female (2003 est.)

22. China 1.06 male(s)/female (2003 est.)

Source: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/peo_sex_rat_tot_pop∫=-1

So how high is the disproportion!? So "high" that the next countries on the list doesn't even come close?

Care to elaborate the landslide-type margin the sinophobic media always talks about?

China is ALWAYS the focus. How many have actually looked at the statistics before questioning? It is just so popular to isolate (PR) China, is not it?

- more kidnappings of young girls to be kept as a wife in some far off province?

- increase in rapes?

- an increasingly restless/frustrated young male population?

Been reading Epoch Times?

- increase in sex industry?

Sex is an industry? (Maybe for Thailand.)

[gougou]

China is being isolated because these are the chinese-forums... Of course there are other countries with similar characteristics.

Whether or not the disproportions are high or not may be relative, but China does rank among the countries with the highest discrepancy. If you take 1.1 as the ratio, that means that statistically, 1 out of every 10 guys won't be able to find a spouse.

Sex is an industry? (Maybe for Thailand.)

Not only there. There are reasons this is referred to as the oldest profession... I recently read a report about prostitution in Spain. The estimated daily turnover of this industry (or what you want to call it) is EUR 40 million. Roughly calculated, this compares to the GDP of a country like Albania...

[roddy]

According to the country's fifth census conducted in 2000, the gender imbalance rate stands at 119.92 boys to 100 girls, compared with the normal rate of less of 106 boys to 100 girls.

From the hardly sinophobic China Daily. I'm not sure how the disparity between this number and those quoted above arises. Perhaps the China Daily was trying to appear objective by making the figures look worse than they really are?

Kidnappings, rapes and prosititution may increase, but the imbalance isn't the only factor and I'd be wary of drawing direct links. Single men in and of themselves aren't necessarily a threat. Single, unemployed men with no hope of either job or family might be.

China is being isolated because these are the chinese-forums... Of course there are other countries with similar characteristics.

Indeed. There is, presumably, an indian-forums somewhere, where India is being 'isolated'. China does get a huge amount of press at the moment, but that's because it's becoming so much more important - and the press reports bad news, not good, because good news doesn't sell papers.

Roddy

[zhiaimao]

China is being isolated because these are the chinese-forums...

This is not exclusive to the Chinese forums or communities.

It is all over the media! Programmes on TV JUST focuses on China. Newspapers, TV news, radio news, all the same path.

Whether or not the disproportions are high or not may be relative, but China does rank among the countries with the highest discrepancy.

So why just focus on China and not the rest?

It is discrimative to just focus on one country and leave out the rest.

[roddy]

If I wanted to start 'world-forums.com' I would. I don't. The OP is asking about China, this is a website about China, it's not unreasonable. If you want to start a topic about media bias against Chinese elsewhere, go ahead.

[randall_flagg]

Just to add my two cents: I wrote a paper on female suicide in China this year. And guess what: China is the only country in the world where more women commit suicide than do men. Intersting, isn't it? No time right now, else I'd elaborate I make of this. I have a whole lot of thoughts on the topic, trust me!

[yorkie_bear]

thanks for your thoughts so far.

Besides this being a forum about China, I am also ethnically Chinese which prompted my interest in China in particular. China IS getting a lot of press but the imbalance has been exacerbated by its own one child policy (slightly loosened now?) and in combination with the vast economic and social changes happening in the country anyhow.... and, dare I say it, a loosening control on people's lives by the authorities...and as Roddy has pointed out, now no guarantee of jobs for life.... a big combination of forces is coming together....

p.s. isn't there a sex industry in China? My question was actually partly prompted by a newspiece here in Thailand about a push to teach Mandarin in all schools. Some wag pointed out its usefulness to the 'bargirls' here... I don't think Chinese tour groups are hitting those areas yet, but it could just be a matter of time...

[geraldc]

In Shenzhen the dodgy places were the hairdressing salons, the ones where the girls didn't cut hair as it were.

Hainan apparently has a thriving trade in that sort of thing too.

[天峰]

The reason why Chinese numbers are much more significant than those of other countries is because the large number of males are living in abject poverty in the western provinces. These males also under an authoritative state have no voice. They will be a huge cause of social unrest in the future. In major cities there are many situations where one many might have a wife and 3 or 4 girlfriends. Women flock to the cities for these life styles. I did research on it while living in Beijing women working in the prostitution industry. The statistics I read were that there are actually 114 males for every 100 females. When you transfer that to the official 1.3 billion) people in China (some people believe it to be closer to 1.5) it leaves a huge number of males that will be with out a spouses. If you don't think that men, with nothing to live except squatting on the edge of a rice field all day, will not move to change their lives if the chance arises than you don't know History. I am actually planning on doing my graduate studies on this so I could write for pages but my personal opinion is that this over abundance of males will create increasing social unrest in the west. You can see it if you travel out that way and talk to everyday normal people. Those that have a family to look forward to might be unhappy, but are unwilling to change due to fear of loosing what they now have. Those who don't have family and intern have very little to loose grow increasingly discontent with what they have been given and they could easily be sparked to action by a charismatic leader. The Chinese government has been trying to offer incentives for your one child to be a girl and other social reforms to help steer away from this possible train wreck. But really only time will tell.

[Celso Pin]

??????

If you consider the gay males, and considering a gay couple is usually 2 males (and the proportion is 10:1 against female couples), I think 10 % more boys than girls is not really a big problem...

my 2 cents to help to complete the equation.(sh)

[Celso Pin]

Unless my poor understanding of the english language drove me to a wrong conpreension of the affirmative above...

roddy is right.... there is more things than hydrogen...

[randall_flagg]

"The Chinese government has been trying to offer incentives for your one child to be a girl and other social reforms to help steer away from this possible train wreck."

Really? Recent developments in the one child policy indicate just the opposite, don't they? You can now have a second child, if your first child happens to be a daughter. Now, unless I am getting things messed up, wouldn't that further increase the unbalance? Wouldn't that further contribute to women feeling that they are not valued as much as man are? 重男轻女 is all over the place, lest I be mistaken.

About the prostitution: I would really be interested in looking into some of the sources you are using for your research (could you perhaps P.M. me about it? Thanx). During my recent trip to China I talked to some people about prostitution, cause man, it was so out there! Not only the hairdressing salons, either. When you cross the street, female pimps would offer you girls, in English, Chinese or using international hand gestures. When I did a two-day trip in Inner Mongolia the tour guide would offer us Mongolian girls. What in the world? I thought it was illegal. Of course, no matter if it is illegal or not, it'll always be there. But what stuns me is that it would be so out there, not even a hint of secrecy about it. Anyway, when I talked to the locals about it, I always stressed that my main problem was not the fact that there are girls out there selling their bodies but that it is illegal. Because it is illegal, I always think that the girls have no way to fight back if they are being maltreated, either by some vicious client or by the pimp. Nor could a customer try to fight back if he were being blackmailed. Maybe I am seeing things to positive anyway and the girls would not go to the police to report abuse? But I was surprise by what people told me: “Oh no, this is not a problem, they are being treated nicely!” or: “Oh, they go to the police anyway should anything happen!” Just can’t believe it.

[yorkie_bear]

randall_flagg

I wonder if there were prostitutes before China started opening up to the west during the Communist regime?

Also I am surprised at that stat about suicides. Terrible generalisation about to come: I always got the impression during my time in China that the women were quite capable of standing up for themselves, not scared to vocalise their dissatisfactions, that anyone going to China looking for a submissive, weak willed girl would be surprised at what they find?

Celso Pin: that's what my husband said - an rise in the levels of homosexuality! But I don't see it myself!

OK, v. cynical thought here: large restless unemployed male population - would a government channel the frustration onto a third party e.g. by aggressively starting a war? Highly simplistic notion I know...

[aeon]

Really? Recent developments in the one child policy indicate just the opposite, don't they? You can now have a second child, if your first child happens to be a daughter. Now, unless I am getting things messed up, wouldn't that further increase the unbalance?

It doesn't increase the imbalance. Each pregnancy has a 50:50 chance of producing a girl, so as long as there is no sneaky sex selection going on, allowing a second pregnancy will just increase the population but not affect the sex ratio. It's a kind of a cheat: it increases an individual couple's chance of having a son, but without affecting the population as a whole.

For example: 100 couples have 100 babies. 50 boys, 50 girls. If there is a strict 'One Child Policy', that's it. The next generation will be half the size of the one before. If however the couples who have girls are allowed a further pregnancy, then there will be another 50 babies, 25 more boys and 25 more girls. Thus the sex ratio is maintained, but this time there is only a 25% reduction in population over the generation. You can keep on going, allowing more pregnancies for the couples who had girls again, it won't affect the sex ratio it just increases the size of the next generation. The problem comes when couples start selecting for male fetuses or selectively aborting girls.

[Toto]

I didn't realise the extent of this problem in China until some tv programme in the UK broadcasted about this subject.

All I know is that, because of the lack of chinese women in China, many chinese men will look to marry a chinese girl from HK.

Also, many chinese girls in China are being married into the UK, through 'arranged marriages'. I have some old chinese school friends who have done this. Quite a few friends who don't try and work out their relationships in the UK will just at the 'drop of a hat' go for this type of arranged marriages because they think that girls from rural China would be the kind that makes 'wife material'. I find this really sad, because the girl will not be able to fend for herself as she will barely be able to speak English, never mind the fact that she would end up being this baby machine at a young age. (As you do with traditional chinese filial duty to produce a heir to carry on the name.)

[LC1986]

It doesn't increase the imbalance. Each pregnancy has a 50:50 chance of producing a girl

I thought boys were actually slightly more likely to be born (something like 1.06:1); not sure why that is, but, if I'm not misremembering, there is some scientific explanation. Although boys are more likely to die during childbirth, so it should come out about equal...

[yorkie_bear]

Toto

" many chinese men will look to marry a chinese girl from HK."

woah! It's true I know a lot of HK girls who are sweet and single but I can also say that their standards are tremendously high! (And not to be nasty about HKers, they are a little bit snobbish).

I actually thought it was more the other way round these days: HK guys keeping mainlander mistresses in Shenzhen/Zhuhai!

[skylee]

woah! It's true I know a lot of HK girls who are sweet and single but I can also say that their standards are tremendously high! (And not to be nasty about HKers' date=' they are a little bit snobbish).

I actually thought it was more the other way round these days: HK guys keeping mainlander mistresses in Shenzhen/Zhuhai![/quote']

Correct observations.