New study in the British Journal of Medicine shows sex-selective abortions has left China with 32 million more males, an imbalance that is expected to continue to rise.
-- From "Selective abortions result in 32m excess males in China" Agence France-Presse 4/10/09
The study provided ammunition for those experts who predicted that China’s obsession with a male heir would sow bitter fruit, as men facing a life of bachelorhood would eventually have to fight for a bride. “Although some imaginative and extreme solutions have been suggested, nothing can be done now to prevent this imminent generation of excess men,” says the paper. In most countries, males slightly outnumber females, with an average of 103 to 107 male births for every 100 female births.
But in China and other Asian countries, the gender ratio has widened sharply as the traditional preference for boys was reinforced by the availability of cheap ultrasound diagnostics and abortion. This has enabled Chinese couples to use abortions to prevent a female birth, a practice that was officially condemned as well as being made illegal.
Amongst the Chinese aged below 20, the greatest gender imbalances existed amongst one-to-four-year-olds, where there were 124 male to 100 female births, with 126 to 100 in rural areas, they found.
When it came to second births, the sex ratio was even higher, with 143 male births to 100 female births. It peaked at a massive 192 boys to 100 girls in the Jiangsu province.
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