Selective Abortions, Birth Restrictions Continue to Distort China’s Gender Ratio [Excerpts]
(Sex-selective abortions linked to China’s “one-child” policy along with a traditional preference for boys have resulted in dramatically skewed male-female ratios in the world’s most populous country that are likely to persist for decades.
A new study analyzing 2005 census data found that in that year alone, more than 1.1 million more boys than girls were born. In 2005, there were 32 million more males than females under the age of 20.
Researchers in China and Britain recorded a national ratio in the one- to four-year-old age group of 124 boys to 100 girls. In some provinces, the ratio was even more unbalanced, exceeding 140:100.
The international norm is 103-107 boys for every 100 girls.
“Sex selective abortion accounts for almost all the excess males,” said the study, which was published [4/10/09] in the British Medical Journal.
Introduced in the late 1970s, China’s birth limitation policy generally restricts couples to having one child. Exceptions are made in certain cases, including one that allows ethnic minorities or couples living in rural areas to have a second child if their firstborn is a girl.
Chinese authorities say the population control policy is enforced by means of financial incentives and punitive fines (“social compensation fees”), but evidence of forced abortions and sterilizations carried out at the behest of population control program officials has frequently emerged over the years.
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