One child policy leads to huge gender imbalance
Updated
The latest research shows that selective abortion in favour of males has left China with 32 million more boys than girls, creating an imbalance that will endure for decades.
The paper, published by the British Medical Journal, encourages the Chinese government to follow the example of South Korea where strictly enforced law and a public awareness campaign have successfully reduced the gender imbalance in 1990s. But other experts say to change the ideology of more than 1 billion people will take a much longer time.
Presenter: Lily Yan
Speakers: Professor Zhongwei Zhao from the Australian National Unviersity
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LILY YAN: The latest research on China's demography shows China has more than 1 million excess male births every year, that is on top of the 32 million more boys than than girls already existing today. Therese Hesketh, one of the authors, says the findings are alarming.
THERESE HESKETH: What we're showing is that the sex ratio in the very important productive age group where it really matters is actually going to worsen over the next 20 years.
LILY YAN: The paper has attributed this phenomenon largely to China's one-child policy. It says couples who still hold traditional preference for boys than girls will take advantage of cheap ultrasound diagnostics and abortions in order to guarantee a male heir. Even this practice has been banned by the government. But this view has been challenged by Professor Zhongwei Zhao from the Australian National University. He says the sex ratio imbalance is mainly a result of an old cultural practice which has been existed for many years.
ZHONGWEI ZHAO: For example, we have data for 1930s and 1940s. At that time the sex ratio in the Chinese population or the sex ratio at birth in China's population was also very high.
LILY YAN: It has been widely believed that the gender imbalance in the country will cause serious social consequences. Social analysts and media have been relating it with increased human trafficking and crime rates. However Therese Hesketh believes the actual situation is not as bad as it has been recorded.
THERESE HESKETH: We are currently doing a study in China which is suggesting that the older bachelors are not behaving in antisocial ways, that there is no concern about increased trafficking in these high sex ratio areas. So we are concerned that this has actually been rather hyped by the press.
Having said this, Therese Hesketh agrees it is still a serious problem that the Chinese Government needs to tackle and she says the Chinese need to look no further than its neighbour South Korea.
THERESE HESKETH: In South Korea the sex ratio peaked in the late 1980s. It's the first area of the world in fact to have a fairly high sex ratio as a result of sex-selective abortions. There they did enforce and punish doctors who conducted sex-selected abortions and the sex ratio fell quite dramatically
LILY YAN: But Professor Zhao says it would take a much longer time for a country like China to achieve its goal of gender balance.
ZHONGWEI ZHAO: The fact that China's government has been working on that over the last 20 to 30 years, if we want to make this social trend in the larger population in China of more than 1 billion people it takes some time.
