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Chinese concerned 24 million men have no one to wed in 2020
Submitted by Matt on Mon, 2010-01-11 19:55
Article here. Excerpt:
'BEIJING (AFP) – More than 24 million Chinese men of marrying age could find themselves without spouses in 2020, state media reported on Monday, citing a study that blamed sex-specific abortions as a major factor.
The study, by the government-backed Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, named the gender imbalance among newborns as the most serious demographic problem for the country's population of 1.3 billion, the Global Times said.
"Sex-specific abortions remained extremely commonplace, especially in rural areas," where the cultural preference for boys over girls is strongest, the study said, while noting the reasons for the gender imbalance were "complex."
...
China first implemented its population control policy in 1979, generally limiting families to one child, with some exceptions for rural farmers, ethnic minorities and other groups.
It has said the policy has averted 400 million births.
Researchers said the gender imbalance problem cropped up in the late 1980s when the use of ultrasound technology became more prevalent.
This allowed women to easily determine the sex of their foetuses, leading to an increased number of sex-selective abortions.'
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And the numbers say... (UPDATED)
CORRECTED: I blew the math in my original comment. Thanks to reader ItsDan for the correction.
To bring the numbers down to reality a bit...stick with me, there's some math in it..
The article reports the relative "overage" of men in China in 2020 will be at 24,000,000 by 2020. Let's do de math:
Projected pop'n in China in 2020: 1,430,000,000 (cite ref: Wikipedia)
Overage of men relative to women in 2020, projected in the Yahoo!-hosted AFP article: 24,000,000
So for actual numbers, to get a 50:50 M:F sex ratio, we just divide by two: 1,430,000,000 / 2 = 715,000,000
Adjust for the 24,000,000 figure and instead of there being 715,000,000 males and 715,000,000 females in 2020, instead it'll be:
715,000,000 - 12,000,000 = 703,000,000 females
715,000,000 + 12,000,000 = 727,000,000 males
Now, to get the relative proportional difference as a percentage, we divide the lower number by the higher, and since in this case they both trail with six zeros, we can get rid of those, and then we multiply by 100, as in:
(703/727) x 100 = .966988 x 100 = 96.7
This means for every 100 men, there will be 96.7 women, or to be a bit more realistic, for every 100 men, 98 women. [I could try to round out from 96.7 so that I have a much more precise integer-only ratio, but as we already know, I am not God's mathematician - hey, aren't boys supposed to be good at math?? :)]. While that is a shame in terms of lost opportunities for 2 of every 100 Chinese men never to know wedded bliss (well, supposedly), such is not so unusual demographically in the history of the human race, even before modern technology allowed Chinese women to pick male fetuses to allow to come to term while aborting female ones. Truth is, plenty of other societies have had conditions where for whatever reason (usually illnesses), there have, temporarily, been relatively many more males than females (eg: 1.2 males : 1 female), and still, they survived just fine. This is not one of them.
Those 2 of 100 guys in China in 2020 will be just fine, trust me.
selective gender abortions
I re-wrote this post, as my original was too sloppy:
To comment on selective gender abortions....
I read somewhere that the rate at which selective-gender abortions occur is overstated. I tend to agree with this as the gender of a fetus cannot be determined until 4 months, and this is with relatively new technology. Just 10 years ago parents had to wait 6 months (ultrasounds have gotten better over time).
As far as the claim that more male babies are aborted for all reasons. I would say that in early-term abortions since gender is not determined before the abortion, I doubt it is determined afterwards. I also doubt that clinics would keep such records. So I don't think such claims can be made based on data, but if you read my next paragraph , I will explain why more male babies are aborted and miscarried.....
As far as late term abortions when gender can be determined, I would agree that more males fall into this category because in nature more male babies are conceived. Males have a much higher death rate starting in the womb. Nature seems to make up for this by conceiving slightly more male babies. So male abortion is not neccisarily a selective process, it is just by chance because there are slightly more male fetuses.
(I can't find a link to the 'more males conceived' phenomenon, but I will try to provide one later)
I can't remember what the exact statistics are but male fetuses suffer more miscarriages, and male babies are more likely to die in their first year of life.
So take care of your boys!!!
PS - If anyone has any links on the rate (how often it occurs) of gender-selective abortions, I would appreciate it.
Matt, In your math you need
Matt,
In your math you need to use HALF the 24m difference from the 50/50 number (715,000,000). You used 24m on both thereby creating a 48m difference.
As for gender specific abortions it entirely depends on culture. In the US I believe the numbers say that less than 5% of abortions even occur at a time when the gender could be known (as you said it's not knowable right away). Of the 5% many of those don't know the gender, so you're left with a very slim margin where it's even conceivable that it's gender-selection.
Now in a country like rural India it certainly exists and they've had to train counselors to deal with it. I trust any numbers from a remotely biased source will be overblown but when you have economic destitution combined with parents (men AND women) who feel a male child is more useful to them (ie male disposability) it's going to happen.
More males in China
Why more males in China...
I think more males are born because the knowledge of how to conceive a male child is widely available all over the internet, and I am sure it has spread to poor areas by word-of-mouth. I know several people that have used this knowledge with successful results.
Of course I could get really speculative and suggest that maybe some Chinese parents (or any country that values male babies) are abandoning, selling or even killing female babies in desperation to have a single male child. I do know the Chinese orphanages are filled with female children and many of them are adopted to the USA.
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/10/25/china.baby.ring/
It is just my guess, but I think those scenarios are more likely than gender-selective abortions.
To get more on track with the article about the Chinese males not having wives....
I am fine with people choosing not to get married, but I think in China these men want to get married. Family and marriage is highly valued in this culture, so I do not think it is respectful of MRA's to cast this off as 'no big deal'.
I also worry about the upset in nature with the shortage of females. You don't want to mess with nature. If you mess with her, she messes back! Somehow, I think there will be negative natural consequence for messing with the male/female ratio.
Another thought occurred to me. There is always talk about how white men are snatching up the Asian women, that is also be leaving a lot of Asian men without a mate.
What you've forgotten
Spread across the entire population from 0-90, 24m surplus males may not seem a lot, but the bulk of these will be concentrated in a relatively narrow age band. Within this band, which is the band in which people are looking for partners, the imbalance will be a lot greater.
You are right!
I blew it. I'll update the numbers. Thanks for the heads-up!
Another thing
Also there's likely to be a surplus of older women, as in all countries, since they live longer than men.