China's birth limits create risky gender gap

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Calvin

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One study suggests result could be increasing crime, social problems

BEIJING - China has 32 million more young men than young women — a gender gap that could lead to increasing crime — because parents facing strict birth limits abort female fetuses to have a son, a study released Friday said.

The imbalance is expected to steadily worsen among people of childbearing age over the next two decades and could trigger a slew of social problems, including a possible spike in crime by young men unable to find female partners, said an author of the report published in the BMJ, formerly known as the British Medical Journal.

"If you've got highly sexed young men, there is a concern that they will all get together and, with high levels of testosterone, there may be a real risk, that they will go out and commit crimes," said Therese Hesketh, a lecturer at the Centre for International Health and Development at University College London. She did not specify what kinds of crimes.

The study said analysis of China's 2005 census data extrapolated that males under age 20 exceeded their female counterparts by a whopping 32 million.

119 male births for every 100 girls

e study found that China has 119 male births for every 100 girls, compared with 107 to 100 for industrialized countries.

"Nothing can be done now to prevent this imminent generation of excess men," said the report by Hesketh and two professors from eastern China's Zhejiang province.

The study found that the biggest boy-girl gaps are in the 1 to 4-year-old group — meaning that China will have to grapple with the effects of that imbalance when those children reach reproductive age in 15 to 20 years.

China imposed strict birth controls in the 1970s to limit growth of its huge population, noting that resources, especially land, were increasingly strained and that changes were needed in its new push to modernize. The government says the controls have prevented an additional 400 million births in the world's most populous country of 1.3 billion.

But families, especially rural ones, cling to traditional preferences for a male heir, and infanticide of baby girls became a problem. In response, some parts of China allow couples to have a second child if the first is a girl.

The prevalence of sonograms in recent years has allowed parents to learn the gender of their fetus about 20 weeks into pregnancy, Hesketh said, leading to a rise in abortions based on sex. Abortion is legal and widely available.

Tests commonly done by private clinics

China bans tests to determine the fetus' gender for non-medical reasons but they are still commonly done, mainly by underground private clinics in the countryside.

Many countries ban abortion after 12 or sometimes 24 weeks of pregnancy unless the mother's life is at risk. China's laws do not expressly prohibit or even define late-term termination.

A debate about the extent of China's gender imbalance has brewed for years among population experts. Some families hide the births of daughters, never registering them with authorities, so they can legally try for a son, making it harder to measure the problem.

Nancy Riley, a professor of sociology at Bowdoin College in Maine who was not involved with the study, said its methodology looked fine but questioned whether selective abortion indeed counted for almost all the excess males.

"From other research, it is clear that sex-selective abortion does indeed contribute to these high sex ratios, but so do other things (such as) non-reporting of girl births, abandonment, even infanticide," Riley said.

For their study, Hesketh and professors Li Lu of Zhejiang University and Zhu Weixing of Zhejiang Normal University examined data on 4.7 million people under the age of 20 from all parts of the country.

Ethic minorities exempt from birth limits

Ratios in Jiangxi and Henan provinces were the highest in the country, with 140 boys for every 100 girls in the 1-4 age range, the study said.

Hesketh told The Associated Press she thought rates were highest there because both provinces are poor and have largely secular Han Chinese populations. China's often disadvantaged ethnic minorities are exempt from birth limits, and researchers found normal sex ratios in the minority regions of Tibet and largely Muslim Xinjiang.

Ratios were also particularly high among second children as parents again try to ensure they have a son and not another daughter.

China has launched subsidy programs and education campaigns encouraging families to have girls, but they have had a limited impact.

The study said enforcing the existing ban on sex-selective abortion could lead to normalization of the ratios.
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It's China's problem, just let them goes and they will find out about what's wrong with communist government, also I have no respect for communist government with poor human rights record.
 
Foxrac said:
It's China's problem, just let them goes and they will find out about what's wrong with communist government, also I have no respect for communist government with poor human rights record.
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Yeah, they haven't changed their culture in a long time as they're known for poor human and animal rights activity. Who knows when they get rid of the communist government in the future. It's pretty sad and yes, I agree it's China's problem to deal with.
 
I figured it would not be long before the gender gap would take place.

Funny, my Mother and I was talking about this a few days ago. Agreed crime rates will increase. I also feel bad for the men that will not be able to find a female partner.
 
Calvin said:
Yeah, they haven't changed their culture in a long time as they're known for poor human and animal rights activity. Who knows when they get rid of the communist government in the future. It's pretty sad and yes, I agree it's China's problem to deal with.
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Yup, China isn't true communist country due free market, bad record on worker rights, lacks of sufficient government assistance to find housings for Chinese and not equality so enough because they treat Tibetans so bad.

Communist party isn't part of Chinese's history either.

I feel bad for Chinese who suffers limited of freedom and victim from torture, also anyone who are pro-democracy, anti-communist.

China has any chance to get out of communist but closer did due protest on Tiananmen Square in 1989 to rid of communist government but not still effective, it could happen again in next decades.
 
Babyblue said:
I figured it would not be long before the gender gap would take place.

Funny, my Mother and I was talking about this a few days ago. Agreed crime rates will increase. I also feel bad for the men that will not be able to find a female partner.
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I wonder, if in the near future, China will start to practice polyandry, where women have more than one husband? I could see that becoming the practice to make up for the huge gender gap.
 
jillio said:
I wonder, if in the near future, China will start to practice polyandry, where women have more than one husband? I could see that becoming the practice to make up for the huge gender gap.
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:lol: that thought did cross my mine. But which husband will be allowed to carry a heir? Since the woman will be only allowed to have one child.
 
Babyblue said:
:lol: that thought did cross my mine. But which husband will be allowed to carry a heir? Since the woman will be only allowed to have one child.
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That's a good question...I didn't think it all the way through!:giggle: Maybe it would be the first husband that would be the one to father the heir, or maybe they would change the law so that each husband could father one child.
 
Funny, about 10 years ago when I read about the abortions or abandonment of female babies, I wondered what would happen if the population was all male only. Guess I am seeing one of the answers to my questions.

I can see crime rising as a result for getting a female mate.
 
I can see a lot more than just crime rates.

I see the competition of males trying to gain the females love.

Which would probably make the female population more valued.
 
Yes I am not surprise if it´s really true. It´s pretty sad... :(
 
Babyblue said:
I figured it would not be long before the gender gap would take place.

Funny, my Mother and I was talking about this a few days ago. Agreed crime rates will increase. I also feel bad for the men that will not be able to find a female partner.
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it is very very typical of Asian men (usually low class) to find wife from other Asian country. Lot of Korean farmers get wife from a poor Asian country like Vietnam.
 
Extremely stupid. :roll:

China sure is one of the most sexist countries in the world.

They wont even give these innocent young girls a chance to live into this world...then again I guess they cant when they are living in a country that is completly unfair to them.
 
Yeah, it's China's fault for doing the pro-male birth only.

But on the other hand:
Men in China don't just marry Chinese women only.
Marriage between other orientals are getting popular.

IE:
Chinese & Japanese
Chinese & Korean
Chinese & Taiwanese
Chinese & Indian
Chinese & American

For the last one, noted interesting data is that there is a 3:1 ratio of American male with Chinese Female : Chinese male with American female, comes from Asian studies book.

You get the idea..
The study does not take those into factor. Then again, it could also argue that not every 119 men: 100 women will actually marry.
 
+20 years ago, I never forget that I read newspaper. During earlier 1950's, many chineses were very poor and hungry. They ate own babies in China.

I tried to google but still can't find any story from 1950's.
Baby Eating in China
 
darkage said:
+20 years ago, I never forget that I read newspaper. During earlier 1950's, many chineses were very poor and hungry. They ate own babies in China.

I tried to google but still can't find any story from 1950's.
Baby Eating in China
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Oh, not surprised.

Communist is epic fail.
 
darkage said:
+20 years ago, I never forget that I read newspaper. During earlier 1950's, many chineses were very poor and hungry. They ate own babies in China.

I tried to google but still can't find any story from 1950's.
Baby Eating in China
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Ew. I'd rather starve to death than to eat my own child. *shudders*
 
darkage said:
+20 years ago, I never forget that I read newspaper. During earlier 1950's, many chineses were very poor and hungry. They ate own babies in China.

I tried to google but still can't find any story from 1950's.
Baby Eating in China
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:eek3:

Anyway, about the gender gap, well be positive then. Maybe they will move out of China to marry women in other countries, it perhaps will make China better with the population control.
 
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