According to a recent study published in the British Medical Journal, there are 32 million more boys than girls under the age of 20 in China. A preference for male offspring meant that there were 120 boys born for every 100 girls in 2005.
In China, the restrictive (and at times draconian) family planning policies limit the number of children. The one-child policy allows urban couples to have one boy or girl, but exceptions are granted to minorities, rural couples and parents without siblings of their own. The authors of the report “attributed the imbalance almost entirely to couples’ decisions to abort female fetuses.”
The gender imbalance points to China’s looming demographic issues. China’s population is 1.3 billion (20 percent of the world’s total) and the country is aging. As the dependency ratio (proportion of children and elderly to working-age adults) increases, it will be more difficult to pay for social security and healthcare.
Photo from Jason Lee/Reuters and graphic from the Economist.
