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On Fri, 19 May 2006, Jonathan King wrote:
On 5/19/06, Mike Miller <EMAIL:PROTECTED> wrote:
On Fri, 19 May 2006, Rick wrote:
> Oddly enough, I believe they are currently experiencing just that.
> I've read articles that indicate there is currently a 3-1 male/female
> ratio, which has led to an increase in the abduction of female
> infants. The families are apparently kidnapping female babys in order
> to make sure their son has a bride...
The sex ratio is probably a little less than 1.2 boys per girl at birth
today. I haven't heard the kidnapping story. It doesn't make much
sense.
Agree on kidnapping.
It could have happened. I mean, if people are afraid, they might resort
to that. The thing is, the 1.2 male:female ratio at birth may increase a
lot in some areas where many girls are put up for adoption. China is
selling of a lot of girls.
It is true that they are on target to have something like 40 million
more men than can hope to marry in the next decade and a half, and this
will be a real problem.
Right. I wonder what will happen. Maybe men will leave China. But I
think the more desirable men will find wives, sometimes by taking a wife
from a lower class, and the poorer men will have problems. This could be
good, in a way, but maybe some of the unmarried men will cause more
trouble than they would have if they'd been married -- crime, substance
abuse, etc. I don't know.
In case anybody was unclear about how this was happening, it seems to be
spectacularly bad interaction between the one-child policy (nobody wants
their only child to be a girl), and a vigorous black market in portable
ultrasound units and their use to detect sex well before term.
I read that the government was distributing large numbers of portable
ultrasound devices that were to be used to check that women were keeping
their IUDs in. They soon figured out other ways to use those devices.
I'm skeptical that the one-child policy is demographically sound for
more than a generation, so I expect that's the change that will lead to
a rebalance of the system. As the Chinese become more wealthy, there is
little reason to expect that they won't choose to have fewer children on
average, as essentially every single other society has ended up.
China seems to be a very diverse place with many poor agrarian people and
many sophisticated metro people. The policy seems to be applied much more
to the city folk than to the country folk. So maybe, unlike some nations,
they can continue to replenish their population without increasing
immigration substantially.
Mike
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