Why are there more men than women?

Currently China's population under 19 years of age, women are 23.77 million fewer than men, which means that 10 years later, men of marriageable age will be more than 20 million more than women of the same age, tens of millions of men of marriageable age may face "difficult to get a wife"-- 1 The sex ratio has been out of balance for more than 20 years - at present, except for Tibet, all other provinces in China have a high sex ratio at birth "Women run away when they are older, and it is difficult for children to get married when they are older." Nowadays, in rural China, especially in remote areas, older unmarried young men are common; in rural elementary school and kindergartens, the proportion of boys has risen significantly; in the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, Southeast Fujian and other manufacturing and service industry agglomeration areas, there is a serious shortage of young female workers between the ages of 18-25 years old, and garment factories, which were "full of young girls", have had to replace them with young women. Previously "full of young girls" garment factories had to use some male workers to replace ...... Some people say that this reflects the "male surplus and female deficit era" has come. The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences released in 2010, "Social Blue Book" pointed out that China's population under 19 years of age gender ratio is seriously imbalanced, by 2020, China is in the marriage age of the number of men will be 24 million more than the number of women. By 2020, there will be 24 million more men than women of marriageable age in China. It is estimated that there will be tens of millions of men of marriageable age who will face difficulties in marrying their wives. "China's high sex ratio at birth has persisted for more than 20 years, and the cumulative effect is already visible." Nankai University School of Economics, Institute of Population and Development, professor of the original new said that the proportion of men and women is coordinated by the laws of natural evolution, however, in China, the birth of the sex ratio imbalance has become a major social "persistent problems". The sex ratio at birth, also known as the sex ratio of infants, under normal circumstances, every 100 girls born, the corresponding birth of 103 to 107 boys. Since the mortality rate of boys is higher than that of girls, the number of men and women tends to equalize at the age of marriage and childbearing. Therefore, the United Nations has set a normal value of 103-107. Since the 1980s, China's sex ratio at birth has been consistently high; at the time of the Third National Population Census in 1982, the sex ratio at birth was 108.47; at the time of the Fourth National Population Census in 1990, it had risen to 111; and by the time of the 2000 census, it had risen to 1.5. The sex ratio at birth was 108.47 at the time of the third national census in 1982; it rose to 111 at the time of the Fourth Population Census in 1990; it jumped to 119 at the time of the Fifth Population Census in 2000; and it was even higher at the time of the National 1% Population Sampling Survey in 2005, reaching 120.49, which exceeded the warning line by 13 percentage points, i.e. a 13% surplus of males relative to females. "In just over 20 years, areas with high sex ratios at birth have spread rapidly from the east to the west and from rural to urban areas, covering almost the whole country." In 1982, only 18 provinces had high sex ratios at birth, Yuan Xin said. in 2005, all provinces except Tibet had high sex ratios at birth, with three of them exceeding 130. At a recent national working conference on caring for girls' actions to comprehensively address the problem of high sex ratios at birth, Li Bin, director of the National Population and Family Planning Commission (NPFPC), said that according to the national statistical bulletin, the sex ratio at birth in 2009 In 2009, China's sex ratio at birth was 119.45, down 1.11 percentage points from 2008, the first decline in recent years. However, overall, the sex ratio is still high. 1 1 2 The increase in bachelors is a problem - the pain of the marriage squeeze lies not only in the creation of a large number of bachelors, but also in the fact that its consequences are mainly borne by the poor "In recent years, among the people who have registered for marriage in Beijing, the number of couples where the male partner is between 25 and 39 years of age has been increasing. In recent years, among the people who registered for marriage in Beijing, the age gap between couples where the male partner is between 25-39 years old has increased compared to 10 years ago, and among them, no less than 10% have an age difference of more than 5 years." According to the head of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the widening gap between men's and women's marriage ages has gradually become a trend, judging from marriage registrations at civil affairs departments across the country in recent years. "The direct impact of the long-term imbalance in the sex ratio at birth is that the 'marriage gradient squeeze' phenomenon has come to the fore." Tian Xueyuan, executive vice president of the China Population Society, said that according to demographic statistics projected by the National Bureau of Statistics, there are currently 23.77 million more males than females in the 0-19-year-old population. In the next 20 years, there will be an average of 1.2 million more men than women newly entering marriage age each year. Shortage of marriageable women of the same age, men will be to the lower age of women in the choice of spouse, squeezed to a certain extent, to other areas, the city brother looking for the countryside sister, the affluent areas of men looking for underdeveloped areas of women, "marriage surplus men" finally deposited in the low-income poorer classes. Tian Xueyuan worriedly pointed out that the family is the foundation of society, not even a family, let alone a harmonious society. When the marriage but can not be married to the sharp increase in men, will jeopardize the stability of marriage and family, greatly increasing the sale of marriage, trafficking in women, prostitution and other illegal and criminal acts. Statistics from the Zhejiang Provincial Public Security Bureau show that of the nearly 200,000 foreign daughters-in-law in the province, 36,000 have been abducted and trafficked, and most of them come from underdeveloped areas such as Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan and Hubei. In the remote mountainous areas along the border between Guangxi and Vietnam, most of the men are poor and have little culture, making it difficult to find wives in the area, and many of them remain bachelors for the rest of their lives. Since 1992, some Vietnamese women have entered these areas through illegal intermediaries, "marrying" local men of older age and then having children. Over the years, government authorities have strengthened management, but illegal marriages have been banned. "The pain of the marriage squeeze lies not only in the number of 'bachelors' produced, but also in the fact that its consequences are mainly borne by the poor." Tian Xueyuan said, some people proposed the introduction of foreign brides to solve the problem of "leftover men", which may be quite effective in countries with small populations, but for a large country with a population of 1.3 billion people, firstly, "imported brides" is not realistic, and secondly, it is a drop in the bucket and can not solve the problem at all. The problem cannot be solved at all. The gender imbalance also brings about the problem of employment squeeze. A frequent traveler in Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Shanghai and other places in the clothing boss said that some garment factories have reached 4:6 ratio of male to female workers, many textile factories can not recruit female workers and shut down. The original new analysis, male labor surplus will enhance the competition in the labor market, exacerbating the difficulty of women's employment; certain industries and occupations, there may be a shortage of women to replace the phenomenon of men; some men's jobs will be due to labor surplus, triggering a fierce competition for men. The original new emphasis, China's long-term imbalance in the sex ratio at birth and population aging intertwined, will exacerbate the irrationality of the demographic structure, threatening the ecological security of the population, the future structure of the social hierarchy, the structure of consumption, the organizational structure and so on will be more male-dominated, and its far-reaching harm, no less than the mid-century population expansion. 2 2 3 Ultrasound has become a direct "killer" - "girls missing" behind, hiding a from illegal identification of fetal sex to illegal artificial termination of pregnancy, "one-stop". The "one-stop" black market The traditional concept of emphasizing male children over female children has existed in China for thousands of years, so why is there a serious imbalance in the male-to-female ratio only in the past 30 years? "Minor childbearing and the popularization of ultrasound are the direct causes." Zhai Zhenwu, dean of the School of Society and Population at Renmin University of China, said that starting in the mid-1980s, Asian countries or regions with a preference for boys, such as South Korea, Japan, and China, generally experienced high sex ratios at birth during the process of declining fertility rates - because that's when ultrasound equipment began to become popular. Many people identify the sex of the fetus by ultrasound after the fourth month of pregnancy, with male fetuses retained and female fetuses induced. The imbalance in the sex ratio is highlighted in the countryside. Over the past 20 years, taking into account urban-rural differences, the country's fertility policy for rural areas has effectively been a "boys only" rule: those who have a boy in their first birth will not be allowed to have a second child, while those who have a girl in their first birth will be allowed to have another child. "Those who have a girl in the first birth will have to do everything possible to have a boy in the second birth." According to Yuan Xin, the population census and 1% of the population sampling found a pattern, the higher the number of children, the higher the sex ratio at birth. 2005 births, the first child birth sex ratio of 108.41, although high, but the degree of seriousness; the second child soared to 143.22; the third child and above the birth of the sex ratio is higher, reached 152.88. "Some villages have not even had a single planned second-born girl born in three years." Behind the "missing girls" lies a huge illegal fetal sex identification market. According to reports, in the border areas of Jiangxi, Hubei and Anhui, the activities of illegal gender identification have changed from hidden to semi-public, from "sitting and waiting at the door" to "door-to-door service", and the time of pregnancy at the time of identification has been shortened from more than 16 weeks to about 12 weeks, and from a small local area to an organized cross-regional market. The time for identification of pregnancy has been shortened from more than 16 weeks to about 12 weeks, and the scope has changed from a small local area to a large, organized cross-regional operation. In some of the "urban villages" where migrant workers gather, billboards for "ultrasound," "induced abortion in large months," and "medication abortion" can be seen everywhere. Billboards can be seen everywhere, offering "one-stop" services from illegal identification of fetal sex to artificial termination of pregnancy. These "ultrasound black market" has two main ways of operation. One is the front store behind the factory. Opened in the street gynecological clinics and even pharmacies to solicit business, the back of the residential building at home to do ultrasound, identification fee of about 200 yuan. If the girl does not want, about the hospital doctor to do surgery. The second is to introduce to the hospital to identify the sex of the fetus. In order to avoid the crackdown by the relevant government departments, to avoid hundreds of thousands of dollars of ultrasound machines were confiscated, some intermediary clinics use relationships, take customers to major hospitals, under the guise of checking the fetal position, and so on, from the "relationship" doctor's hints, to learn the truth, such as the need for abortion, back to the clinic to do the surgery. "Science and technology is a double-edged sword." Zhai Zhenwu said that with the progress of science and technology, there will be more and more new, easy to popularize the gender selection technology and abortion technology, to strengthen the regulation is imminent. 3 3 4 Preference for boys is the root of the problem - the preference for boys in the view of reproduction is a problem of inheritance, "face", and the disadvantaged status of women. ", the traditional view is that the preference for boys in rural areas is to solve the problem of labor, increase income and old age. At present, the most important difficulty of rural old-age security is economic, daughters are older to get married, and living around the son (daughter-in-law) can provide old-age support. However, a survey report on population issues in underdeveloped areas such as Taihu County, Susong County and Qianshan County in Anhui Province shows that in recent years, having a male child has not been better than having a female child in terms of economic contribution. Young people in these areas basically go out to work, with men earning an average of 8,500 yuan a year and handing over about 2,000 yuan to their families; women earning an average of 6,300 yuan a year and handing over about 4,000 yuan to their families. When it comes time to talk about marriage, young women basically earn their own dowry, and young men's parents need to put in 30,000 to 40,000 yuan. Therefore, the preference for boys cannot be reduced to a simple economic problem. In fact, in affluent areas such as China's coastal areas, developed economic conditions and increasingly perfect social security systems have not effectively curbed the momentum of the rising sex ratio at birth. "The root lies in the traditional concept of favoring boys over girls." Tian Xueyuan said that in the eyes of many people, having a boy or a girl is a matter of succession and "face". For the rapid increase in wealth of the family, "ten thousand family wealth left to who" problem, so that people's souls, "the son after the" consciousness has become unprecedentedly active and strong. In some areas where the concept of family and clan is strong, the birth of a boy means that the family name will continue and that the family's power will be strong. A woman with a son can be spared the accusation that her family is "unproductive", and a son can improve the mother's family and social status. Yang Juhua, a professor at Renmin University's School of Social and Population Studies, said the gender difference factor brought about by inequality between men and women is one of the major reasons for people's preference for boys. At present, China's women, in addition to the growth of education level basically catch up with men, other indicators are significantly behind men: in economic life, women, although extensive participation in social labor, but occupational prestige and income is not high. When recruiting workers, under equal conditions, men are often preferred to women; in political life, the proportion of women's political participation is much lower than that of men and the international community's average level of women's political participation, and women account for only 1/5 of those in charge of state organs, party and group organizations, enterprises, and institutions.5 Imbalance in the sex ratio requires strong intervention - the The most urgent task is to combat technical transgressions, and the ultimate solution is to promote gender equality and enhance women's social status. The long-term serious imbalance in the sex ratio is a "loan shark" borne by the society, and it is a hundred-year plan to eliminate the crisis before the disaster breaks out. Luo Mai, director of the National Population and Family Planning Commission's Gender Ratio Management Office, said that the management of the imbalance in the sex ratio at birth should take into account both the symptoms and the root causes, and adopt comprehensive measures to manage the situation. "Nowadays, as soon as the birth sex ratio imbalance is raised, people think of 'difficult to marry' and 'bachelor' problems. In fact, this is considering the issue from a male-centered perspective, not just focusing on men." Yang Juhua pointed out that the problem of high sex ratio at birth is essentially a problem of women's development rights and interests. Due to deep-rooted traditional attitudes and the influence of some existing policy factors, explicit and implicit inequity in access to resources between the sexes is widespread, and women's disadvantaged position remains obvious. Therefore, the "fundamental" solution is to promote the fair and balanced development of both sexes and to enhance the social status of women. It is reported that since 1990, the National Population and Family Planning Commission has been carrying out activities such as the "New Style of Marriage and Parenthood in Ten Thousand Homes" and the "Care for Girls" campaign, establishing a benefit-oriented mechanism conducive to the healthy growth of girls, and providing old-age protection for one-child and two-child households. This has made people feel that they are not at a disadvantage in having girls. In recent years, the State has implemented a rural old-age security system, improved the ability of families and society to provide old-age security, and promoted a change in the ideology of emphasizing boys over girls in terms of material security and concepts.In 2009, the sex ratio of the population at birth showed a downward trend in the country's 14 key provinces (autonomous regions). According to Zhai Zhenwu, the most urgent task is still to crack down on technical transgressions and to rectify the "two illegal practices" (illegal fetal sex identification and illegal sex-selective artificial termination of pregnancy). Beijing Law Firm lawyer Wu Heting said, China's current relevant laws, although strictly prohibited "two illegal" behavior, but did not hit hard. For example, for those who do not have the qualification to practice medicine to engage in the "two illegal" behavior, the law stipulates that according to the crime of illegal practice of medicine to pursue criminal responsibility, but for medical personnel involved in the "two illegal", only provides for administrative penalties, fines only 10,000-3 million yuan, no clear criminal responsibility. However, only administrative penalties are provided for the involvement of medical personnel in the "two illegal practices", with fines ranging from 10,000 to 30,000 yuan, and there is no explicit criminal liability. South Korea has also experienced a high sex ratio at birth, for this reason, South Korean legislation provides for the use of ultrasound to identify the sex of the fetus and choose the sex of induced abortion of medical personnel, first, a fine of 30 million won, equivalent to 200,000 yuan; second, the revocation of the physician's license, life may not practice medicine; third, criminal responsibility, the circumstances are serious, the penalty of less than three years imprisonment. Wuhaiting believes that our country can learn from these practices. 4 4 (People's Daily)