In China and India, men outnumber women by 70 million. Both nations are belatedly trying to come to grips with the policies that created this male-heavy generation
Nothing like this has happened in human history. A combination of cultural preferences, government decree and modern medical technology in the worldÂ’s two largest countries has created a gender imbalance on a continental scale. Men outnumber women by 70 million in China and India.
The consequences of having too many men, now coming of age, are far-reaching: Beyond an epidemic of loneliness, the imbalance distorts labor markets, drives up savings rates in China and drives down consumption, artificially inflates certain property values, and parallels increases in violent crime, trafficking or prostitution in a growing number of locations.
Those consequences are not confined to China and India, but reach deep into their Asian neighbors and distort the economies of Europe and the Americas, as well. Barely recognized, the ramifications of too many men are only starting to come into sight.
“
In the future, there will be millions of men who can’t marry, and that could pose a very big risk to society,” warns Li Shuzhuo, a leading demographer at Xian Jiaotong University.
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India, a country that has a deeply held preference for sons and male heirs, has an excess of 37 million males, according to its most recent census. The number of newborn female babies compared with males has continued to plummet, even as the country grows more developed and prosperous. The imbalance creates a surplus of bachelors and exacerbates human trafficking, both for brides and, possibly, prostitution. Officials attribute this to the advent of sex-selective technology in the last 30 years, which is now banned but still in widespread practice.
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The growing number of eligible men who cannot find brides has
had a profound impact on the age-old rhythms of family life.
Adult sons live with their mothers — in some cases, their grandmothers ..
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“In rural areas, men who didn’t get married are really marginalized; even socializing in the village is difficult,” said Therese Hesketh, a professor of
global health at University College London.“These guys are depressed.”
[...]
The Indian government has tried to ban sex-selective diagnostic
testing, but the practice remains widespread. Many families believe
it is better to abort their unborn girls because it will be hard to
protect them from sexual violence later in life, and parents will
have to pay pricey dowries when the girls are married. In India,
a nation of 1.3 billion, males outnumber females by 37 million.
[...]
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