The Unintended Consequences Of China’s One-Child Policy
October 10th, 2012Via: io9:
“Historically, societies in which men substantially outnumber women are not nice places to live,” writes Hvistendahl, “Often they are unstable. Sometimes they are violent.”
She points to examples in history, such as fourth century B.C. Athens and China’s Taiping Rebellion in mid-19th century — both of which were the result of wide scale female infanticide. These eras were characterized by wide scale crime and violence.
In China, this practice has now resulted in a “surplus” of men who have little hope of marrying. Hvistendahl notes that these men tend to accumulate in the lower classes where the risk of violence is accentuated. Moreover, unmarried men who have low incomes tend to get restless — and in fact, areas with skewed gender balances tend to experience higher rates of crime.
And because it’s harder to find a wife, men are having to literally buy or bid for them. This has contributed to China’s elevated household savings rate where parents are having to squirrel away money in order to secure a bride for their son. It has also led to a boom in the mail order bride business — and prostitution.
And as a recent analysis by Wei Xing Zhu has shown, the imbalance is expected to worsen in the coming decades; the biggest gaps currently exist between the one to four-year old group — which means they’ll be the ones having to deal with the fallout in about in 15 to 20 years.
Who says it’s unintended?
If I were a long term planner with an eye toward empire, making sure I had a large population but not enough women might be just the strategic move I want.
If I were living in Africa, I would get out or start learning Mandarin.