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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 1-Feb-07
Boys, boys, boys! China is running out of girls.

Web Log - February, 2007

Boys, boys, boys! China is running out of girls.

A look inside a Chinese maternity ward is the subject on a report on CNN International on Wednesday.

Chinese maternity ward: Five boys (white) and three girls (pink) <font face=Arial size=-2>(Source: CNN)</font>

Chinese maternity ward: Five boys (white) and three girls (pink) (Source: CNN)

There are 118 boys born for every 100 girls in China.

The reason: Because of China's "One-child policy," women opt for sex-selective abortion and infanticide because they prefer having a boy to a girl.

The imbalance is even greater in the countryside: In rural areas, the ratio is 130 boys for every 100 girls. The situation is more critical in rural areas, since couples need a son to care for them in their old age, according to Chinese cultural customs.

Under normal circumstances, humans will give birth to 105 boys for every 100 girls. There are naturally more boys to compensate for the fact that males are more likely to get killed in wars. So a ratio of 130 boys to 100 girls cannot be an accident.

There's already a huge gender imbalance in China, and it keeps growing. The one-child policy was established in 1980 to keep the population of China from growing even larger, but families have used abortion and infanticide to guarantee, when possible, that the one child is a son who can support them later. China has been trying for years to enforce policies that would produce more girls, but these policies, which include making ultrasound illegal, have obviously not been working very well. (Last sentence added on 4-Mar)

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, China is becoming increasingly unstable and is approaching a massive civil war as its bubble economy unravels, along with the rigid social structure originally set up by Mao Zedong in the 1950s and 60s. The surplus of unattached males only exacerbates the social breakdown, increasing the incidence of prostitution and leaving the males little incentive to "settling down," as opposed to joining violent gangs or going to war.

Today, there are over 100 million migrant workers (15-20% of the entire workforce), mostly peasants who have lost their farms to corrupt land deals by CCP officials, who take any jobs they can find in the cities and send money back to their families in vast poverty-stricken rural areas. Exactly what event will trigger the civil war cannot be predicted, but it could happen next week, next year or after, but will probably happen sooner rather than later. (1-Feb-07) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 1-Feb-07 Boys, boys, boys! China is running out of girls.

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 1-Feb-07
Boys, boys, boys! China is running out of girls.