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catman
Joined: 18 Jul 2004
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 Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2007 2:47 pm Post subject: China: By 2020, 30 million men won't be able to find wives |
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SANBAI, CHINA -- It seems like an ordinary village school, deep in the farm hills of Hainan Island in southern China.
A red Chinese flag flutters in front of the white-tiled building on the village's main street. Outside are rice paddies, water buffaloes, banana trees and grass-roofed houses.
But look more closely at the school's Grade 6 class: row upon row upon row of boys. There are 34 of them in this classroom, and only 20 girls. The same is true across the entire school, where 180 boys vastly outnumber 105 girls.
"It's always a headache to keep order in this school," said Xing Zhen, the principal of Sanbai Primary School. "The boys are always misbehaving. They run all over the place, climbing the trees and the walls."
What he really fears is the restless intensity of boys who grow up to become unmarried men. There are already hundreds of single men in nearby villages, an army of unhappy bachelors. "They can't find wives, and it affects the social stability," Mr. Xing says.
All across China, the dangerous combination of modern technology and traditional beliefs is creating a huge army of single men. By 2020, more than 30 million men of marriageable age will be unable to find wives. Ultrasound machines and selective abortions, combined with China's restrictive one-child policy, are helping parents to skew the gender ratio, with potentially disastrous consequences.
In China, the trend has become so extreme that it is believed to be unprecedented in human history.
A recent Chinese government report warned that 118 boys were born for every 100 girls in 2005. The unbalance is most dramatic in the southern and rural regions where people still hold traditional biases in favour of male children. Hainan province, where 137 boys are born for every 100 girls, has the worst ratio in the country, and could be a harbinger of China's future.
In the villages around Sanbai and Paishen, weddings have become rare. More than 60 per cent of male farmers cannot find wives. "These villages are corners forgotten by love," a Hainan government report said.
On top of its skewed sexual balance, China also faces an increasingly rootless and mobile population, with an estimated 100 million migrant workers who roam the country. Protests are rising, and violence is common. The authorities see a link between the social unrest and the living conditions of the lower classes. Migrant workers in Shanghai and Beijing live in overcrowded dormitories, while the richest residents drive luxury cars and shop in Louis Vuitton boutiques.
Western scholars have predicted that China's demographic trend could trigger a rise in violent crime. "When single young men congregate, the potential for more organized aggression is likely to increase substantially, and this has worrying implications for organized crime and terrorism," said Therese Hesketh, a researcher at University College London, in a commentary last year.
"The growing number of young men with a lack of family prospects [called bare branches in China] will have little outlet for sexual energy. This trend could lead to increased levels of antisocial behaviour and violence."
One of the key questions is whether the bachelor hordes could become linked to political uprisings or wars. Scholars have pointed to the Nien Rebellion in northern China in the 1850s. After a series of failed harvests, the local inhabitants adopted a policy of infanticide, and eventually 25 per cent of the men were unable to marry because of a shortage of women. About 100,000 unmarried men formed bandit gangs, which merged into armies that tried to overthrow the Qing Dynasty in a war that lasted for years.
At the peak of the uprising, the population imbalance was 129 men for every 100 women, smaller than the gender gap that is already developing today on Hainan Island. |
I can't imagine the social upheavel that there will be in rural China by 2020.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070428.CHINA28/TPStory/Front |
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VanIslander
Joined: 18 Aug 2003
Location: Geoje, Hadong, Tongyeong,... now in a small coastal island town outside Gyeongsangnamdo!
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| Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2007 2:51 pm Post subject: |
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| thus, a growth industry will be prostitution |
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jinju
Joined: 22 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2007 3:26 pm Post subject: |
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| Good. They brought it on themselves. |
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catman
Joined: 18 Jul 2004
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| Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2007 3:30 pm Post subject: |
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| VanIslander wrote: |
| thus, a growth industry will be prostitution |
No doubt. But that isn't going to help poor Chinese men. My guess is that the prison population will explode with sex criminals. |
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Vancouver
Joined: 12 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2007 3:31 pm Post subject: |
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| indeed |
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poet13
Joined: 22 Jan 2006
Location: Just over there....throwing lemons.
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| Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2007 4:00 pm Post subject: |
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| 30 million men already can't find wives. |
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Paji eh Wong
Joined: 03 Jun 2003
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| Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2007 4:05 pm Post subject: |
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| Bad news for the CCP. |
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khyber
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Compunction Junction
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| Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2007 4:09 pm Post subject: |
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| If I were one of the families who decided to stick with a girl, I would adopt a Bridewealth (opposite of dowry) system. |
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mnhnhyouh
Joined: 21 Nov 2006
Location: The Middle Kingdom
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| Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2007 4:18 pm Post subject: |
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Given the advantages females will have in future mate selection, it seems that the mechanisms that generally result in an even ratio will come into force, and more families that have the choice will choose females.
h |
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Junior
Joined: 18 Nov 2005
Location: the eye
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| Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2007 4:24 pm Post subject: |
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| It was a deliberate policy by the Chinese govt who need more soldiers for their future war to take Taiwan and Korea back. |
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tomato
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: I get so little foreign language experience, I must be in Koreatown, Los Angeles.
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| Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2007 4:27 pm Post subject: |
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The same thing might happen in Korea.
Some 어린이집's have noticed more boys and fewer girls being enrolled. |
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Junior
Joined: 18 Nov 2005
Location: the eye
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| Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2007 4:33 pm Post subject: |
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| khyber wrote: |
| If I were one of the families who decided to stick with a girl, I would adopt a Bridewealth (opposite of dowry) system. |
The power is firmly in the womens hands now 
Thursday, April 26, 2007 2:39 p.m. EDT
'Where Women Rule, Men Obey'
"Traditional women dominate and men have to be obedient in the areas of Sichuan province and Chongqing"
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2007/4/26/144111.shtml?s=os |
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freethought
Joined: 13 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2007 4:44 pm Post subject: |
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| Junior wrote: |
| It was a deliberate policy by the Chinese govt who need more soldiers for their future war to take Taiwan and Korea back. |
Is this a serious comment?
On a different note, maybe these 30 million men, can hook up with each other? Maybe this 'wife' shortage will lead CHina to legalize gay marriages.
Problem solved. |
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mnhnhyouh
Joined: 21 Nov 2006
Location: The Middle Kingdom
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| Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2007 4:56 pm Post subject: |
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While it may be that the sexual selection practices in China may in future skew this balance, there is some evidence that it is not responsible for it so far....
| wikipedia wrote: |
In a recent paper, Emily Oster (2005) proposed a biological explanation for the gender imbalance in Asian countries, including China. Using data on viral prevalence by country as well as estimates of the effect of hepatitis on sex ratio, Oster found that Hepatitis B could account for up to 75% of the gender disparity in China.[22] |
Original wiki article here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy#Gender-based_birthrate_disparity
and the abstract of the referenced paper here
http://www.eldis.org/static/DOC18588.htm
h |
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VanIslander
Joined: 18 Aug 2003
Location: Geoje, Hadong, Tongyeong,... now in a small coastal island town outside Gyeongsangnamdo!
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| Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2007 4:56 pm Post subject: |
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| Junior wrote: |
| It was a deliberate policy by the Chinese govt who need more soldiers for their future war to take Taiwan and Korea back. |
intentional or not, war unfortunately would be a natural result
and I thought about this myself, though I think soldiers will be sacrificed
fighting smaller wars to support Chinese expansionary aims in central asia |
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