My room-mate, who's from Shanghai, has joked that he would be doing his country a favor if he married a non-Chinese, as there is a growing shortage of marriageable women in China. Only after reading a recent article in the Economist did I realize how serious and widespread the problem actually is, in China and in other countries that traditionally favor boys over girls.
More worrying still, the problem can not be attributed to some simple notion of "backwardness" or lack of education, as development has frequently been accompanied by even more distorted sex ratios.
The core problem is in countries like China and India i baby boys are traditionally considered more valuable than baby girls. This is partly rooted in the historical usefulness of male children as free labor and the desire for a male child, but seems more closely related to other traditions. To Quote the Economist:
"Not all traditional societies show a marked preference for sons over daughters. But in those that do—especially those in which the family line passes through the son and in which he is supposed to look after his parents in old age—a son is worth more than a daughter. A girl is deemed to have joined her husband’s family on marriage, and is lost to her parents. As a Hindu saying puts it, “Raising a daughter is like watering your neighbors’ garden.”"
This helps to explain why the preference for male children, and skewed sex ratios, have actuallyt risen with with income and education. Access to ultrasound makes it possible to determine before birth the sex of a child, and access to abortion makes it far easier to eliminate female children (though female infanticide is not unheard of, particularly in less developed, more rural areas).
The problem, moreover, illustrates the ultimate foolishness in assuming that people acting in their own "rational self interest" is the best system for the economy and for society(while the argument could be made that preferring male over female children is ultimately irrational, in the context of societies deeply influenced by certain trad, I'd have to say that preferring male children is in a very real sense rational ). It instead leaves us with, (strange as it may seem) what is essentially a tragedy of the commons scenario. Families, in preferring and choosing to have male children over female children, are ensuring that their family name survives, that they have free labor, and that they have someone to look after them when they are older. But in doing so, they are leaving a society with a large number of bachelors, with little chance of (for those that seek it) marriage. The issue, moreover, can and does have very real and terrible consequences. In China, as a growing population of frustrated, unhappily-unmarried young men has been connected to a rise in rape and other crimes, including crimes like"bride abduction", and "women trafficking". And riding crime ultimately wastes a socities resources, which makes skewed sex ratios bad for the economy as well.
Thankfully, there is reason to believe that the problem will ultimately work itself out as the countries in question modernize further. Ultimately, the modernization that makes available ultrasound and abortion brings with it new ideas and changes in social norms. This is likely what has happened in South Korea, another country where there was a preference for male children and a skewed sexual ratio, but where the sexual ratio is now returning to more natural levels. In China, the ratio of males to females has at least stabilized at 120-100, perhaps representing a similar turning point where the forces working to change societal norms outweigh the access to ultrasound scanning and abortion.
What are your thoughts on the issue of skewed sexual ratios? Does the issue illustrated the limits of the idea that having people act in their own self-interest is what's best for the economy? Also, I'm aware that there is a general hesitance at K to criticize other cultures and traditions, but could it be argued that traditions leading to the belief that men are more valuable than women are harmful on multiple levels, and ultimately unethical?
Here's a link to the article that I read
http://www.economist.com/world/asia
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As far as criticizing other cultures, it's always more of a "I couldn't imagine it here" type of deal but I can see a basis for the "value" differences. It makes me think of that world population video. It's scary to think that the population seems to be getting so out of control so fast.
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China's problem is very interesting. This "one-child" policy was implemented in the 1980s to reduce China's growing population and improve the economy. With the increasing pressure from the govt at the time, I don't think that parents paid much attention if any to some of the possible problems that might arise in the future.
ReplyDeleteThe world is imbalance in lots of ways. In some countries, there are too many women and in others there are too many men. If people act in their own self-interest, it won't necessarily be good for the economy, it will just be good for the persons acting. For example, with the article above, the decision was good for the parents not the children. Hence, not everyone benefits from self-interest decisions.
Traditions that value men more than women are harmful but I wouldn't deem it unethical because different societies have different religions, beliefs etc. But most countries such as India, Pakistan etc that value men above women are usually poorer due to a lack of literacy and education for women amongst other things. A,E
I took a class on ethics and the argument that ethics can be individually defined is basically self-refuting. It is of course possible to have different cultural norms and expectations, but in terms of morality, if we are to believe that there actually is a moral component to humanity than it must be universal. As my professor explained to us on the first day, if you are of the mindset that ethics can be determined on an individual level than you cannot condemn people like the Unabomber because he thought what he was doing was right.
ReplyDeleteEconomically speaking, I think issues of morality like this prove that an economic system alone is not enough to maintain a civil society. Economics is determining who gets what, but does not innately recognize any moral boundaries. We need the government to place restrictions on economic interactions that lead to male preference and killing female children. A, E, T
This was a really interest post/article. Living in the culture that we do, I have a hard tim wrapping my head around the whole concept of wanting a baby boy and even going to such lengths as having an ultrasound to determine the sex and have an abortion if the child is female. I certainly hope that this issue works itself out, families are just screwing their sons over. If they don't allow for daughters to be born, their family name will ultimately die because their sons will not be able to get married and have children of their own.
ReplyDeleteI think that is really interesting to think about gender from an economic stand point. As a family I see why sons are valued, since they ensure stability in old age and a source of income, but as this post pointed out in the long run a country cannot sustain itself on only males. I think that how this issue evolves in the next decade will be curious to watch. Will the value of women rise as countries realize that a myriad of bachelors is a major problem? I am very much worried about the rise of violence against women, as frustrated males work off energies. I hope that cultures begin to realize the value of women and that things begin to balance out more.
ReplyDeleteI guess I'll throw my comment in here and agree that it would be very interesting to know more about this trend from an economic standpoint, among others. This case also is very revealing of the consequences of government intervention in any aspect of their country. The country's leaders saw the growth rate was too fast, so they sought to counteract it. However, at least to my admittedly very limited knowledge on the subject, they did little to consider the socioeconomic factors surrounding such a decision. Yes, a direct limit on number of children results in a reduction in population growth. Yes, a direct infusion of money into a struggling section of the economy can bring it back from the brink. But these decisions are, by themselves, woefully inadequate to deal with the problem. China needs to provide for its elderly and eliminate the cultural preference of a son over a daughter. The United States needs to reinstitute and expand regulations to ensure that we do not find ourselves in another perfect storm of bad business practices.
ReplyDeleteI really do hope that modernization in these growing, male-dominant countries leads to a more equal value of men and women. While I believe the examples from other countries are good examples of the fact that this process will surely occur as the society continues to advance, history also proves how difficult it is to shake culturally-rooted ideals. While I don't think that the U.S. should condone China's male preference as an acceptable behavior, I think that with the amount of problems our own culture has that it is best to leave this one up to China to solve without much intervention on our end.
ReplyDeleteIt'especially unfortunate because, except for a complete overhaul of social norms, I don't really see a way out of this kind of behavior. the government can't exactly restrict things like dowries, or clamp down on people considering a daughter to be a part of the family she married into. Those are long standing traditions in certain areas and even if there was some legal attempt to restrict that behavior, it would still continue. That much is obvious. The issue is trying to remove the economic incentive from abortion.
ReplyDeleteI feel that overall the decision for Chinese citizens to perfer male babies instead of female. It would seem to me that the population would continue to decrease because of the fact that there are more boys available than girls. This will ultimately have a negative effect on their economy as well.
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