ASIA
08 October 2014
Asia's missing women
Over 100 million women in Asia are "missing" because of selective abortion, infanticide or neglect.
Over 100 million women in Asia are "missing" because of selective abortion, infanticide or neglect.
The greatest opportunity that too many Asian females are deprived of, is the right to life. Selective abortion and infanticide (“gendercide”) are widely practised in Asia with the objective of obtaining a son or sons.
Much noise is made about the case of China, where the one-child policy has biased birth rates in favor of males. Today in China, for every 100 girls born, there 111 boys born (a ratio of 1.11). And the gender ratio rises to 1.16 for the 0-14 years cohort, as boys are always given favored treatment in access to food, health care etc.
But China is not the only case. Some other Asian countries have higher ratios for male births -- even without a one-child policy. These include Hong Kong with a birth ratio of 1.13, and India and Vietnam which both have a birth ratio of 1.12. Both Singapore and South Korea also have the pretty high ratios of 1.07.
This has resulted in the problem of Asia’s “missing women”, first identified by Nobel prize-winning economist Amartya Sen, a problem which is actually growing in Asia. According to the United Nations Development Program, China and India together account for more than 85 million of the nearly 100 million “missing” women, estimated to have died from discriminatory treatment in health care, nutrition access or pure neglect or because they were never born in the first place.
According to a study by Mara Hvistendahl, the figure could be as high as 163 million. Please don’t think that poor and illiterate families are leading the way in gendercide. “Sex selection starts with the urban, educated middle-class and filters down,” says Hvistendahl. Highly educated people have smaller families and therefore are more concerned about having a boy, without which a family might lose status.
What are the causes of this missing women problem? In Confucian and patriarchal cultures there is a preference for males who will inherit the family assets and name, who bring greater status to the family, and who will look after parents as they age. In India, a daughter is a bad investment because of the dowry that her marriage will require.
One important effect is that some young men are unable to find a wife and have a family. By 2030, China might have 30-40 million more young men than women. This bride deficit is thus resulting in many adverse consequences like mental health problems, increased crime, violence, drug abuse, prostitution and human trafficking, such as the traffic of women from North Korea into China. Marriage migration is indeed a growing trend in East Asia, but this only transfers the missing women problem from one country to another.
The Chinese government has announced plans to partly relax the one-child policy. This reform will allow couples, where one partner is an only child, to have two children. In reality, this only applies to urban dwellers, since most rural families can already have two children. And urban dwellers where both partners are an only child, are also already able to have two children. The Family Planning Bureau expects an additional 1.5-2.0 million births a year, raising the current annual new birth rate to about 18 million.
In other words, the impact of the reform is peanuts. And it is not hard to see why. The one-child policy is backed by the powerful family-planning bureaucracy which employs 500,000 full-time and 6 million part-time workers, and collected $2.75 billion in fines in 2012.
This agency fears job losses if the one-child policy were abolished, as it should be. Most analysts agree that a total abolition of the one-child policy would have very little impact on the birth rate. Like their North East Asian neighbours, most Chinese no longer want large families because of the high costs of housing, education and so on. Moreover, the government’s policy of promoting urbanization will dampen the effect of one-child policy reform, as urban families tend to have smaller families than rural ones.
Overall, governments in Asia are taking tentative initiatives to address the missing women problem. But as is invariably the case in Asia, weak enforcement and corruption undermine these efforts.
Executive Director
Asian Century Institute
The greatest opportunity that too many Asian females are deprived of, is the right to life. Selective abortion and infanticide (“gendercide”) are widely practised in Asia with the objective of obtaining a son or sons.
Much noise is made about the case of China, where the one-child policy has biased birth rates in favor of males. Today in China, for every 100 girls born, there 111 boys born (a ratio of 1.11). And the gender ratio rises to 1.16 for the 0-14 years cohort, as boys are always given favored treatment in access to food, health care etc.
But China is not the only case. Some other Asian countries have higher ratios for male births -- even without a one-child policy. These include Hong Kong with a birth ratio of 1.13, and India and Vietnam which both have a birth ratio of 1.12. Both Singapore and South Korea also have the pretty high ratios of 1.07.
This has resulted in the problem of Asia’s “missing women”, first identified by Nobel prize-winning economist Amartya Sen, a problem which is actually growing in Asia. According to the United Nations Development Program, China and India together account for more than 85 million of the nearly 100 million “missing” women, estimated to have died from discriminatory treatment in health care, nutrition access or pure neglect or because they were never born in the first place.
According to a study by Mara Hvistendahl, the figure could be as high as 163 million. Please don’t think that poor and illiterate families are leading the way in gendercide. “Sex selection starts with the urban, educated middle-class and filters down,” says Hvistendahl. Highly educated people have smaller families and therefore are more concerned about having a boy, without which a family might lose status.
What are the causes of this missing women problem? In Confucian and patriarchal cultures there is a preference for males who will inherit the family assets and name, who bring greater status to the family, and who will look after parents as they age. In India, a daughter is a bad investment because of the dowry that her marriage will require.
One important effect is that some young men are unable to find a wife and have a family. By 2030, China might have 30-40 million more young men than women. This bride deficit is thus resulting in many adverse consequences like mental health problems, increased crime, violence, drug abuse, prostitution and human trafficking, such as the traffic of women from North Korea into China. Marriage migration is indeed a growing trend in East Asia, but this only transfers the missing women problem from one country to another.
The Chinese government has announced plans to partly relax the one-child policy. This reform will allow couples, where one partner is an only child, to have two children. In reality, this only applies to urban dwellers, since most rural families can already have two children. And urban dwellers where both partners are an only child, are also already able to have two children. The Family Planning Bureau expects an additional 1.5-2.0 million births a year, raising the current annual new birth rate to about 18 million.
In other words, the impact of the reform is peanuts. And it is not hard to see why. The one-child policy is backed by the powerful family-planning bureaucracy which employs 500,000 full-time and 6 million part-time workers, and collected $2.75 billion in fines in 2012.
This agency fears job losses if the one-child policy were abolished, as it should be. Most analysts agree that a total abolition of the one-child policy would have very little impact on the birth rate. Like their North East Asian neighbours, most Chinese no longer want large families because of the high costs of housing, education and so on. Moreover, the government’s policy of promoting urbanization will dampen the effect of one-child policy reform, as urban families tend to have smaller families than rural ones.
Overall, governments in Asia are taking tentative initiatives to address the missing women problem. But as is invariably the case in Asia, weak enforcement and corruption undermine these efforts.
Author
John WestExecutive Director
Asian Century Institute