"More boys are better" is something that runs very deeply in Chinese culture. This isn't going to change overnight - and the article doesn't begin to touch on the reasons why.

"Lose a daughter, gain a son" is a very common saying for Chinese, and is exactly what happens in marriage. The practice of female infanticide is extremely old news...dating far back to when my grandmother was young. In those days (and even now in the poorer villages) if a female child was the born, the grandmother would it take to the countryside and bury it. And the couple would simply try again, hoping for a boy this time.

Boys are assigned to do the hard and menial labor in the fields, whereas girls are inside doing the domestic labor. In a poor village - let's face it - the boys are the ones generating income. When one thinks from a poor villager's perspective - and worrying about whether there will be enough to put food on the table for today and tomorrow - would it not make more sense to have a boy, and even more so, due to the one-child policy? Having a girl would compromise things. "They'll be wanting this and wanting that" - very old Chinese saying.

And now they're paying for it - through mail order brides from likewise poor countries.

Yes. There's concern among China-watchers that this will lead to greater military activity in the region, just to give a group of testosterone-fueled young men something to do (simple version).

Were this science fiction, people would deal through group marriage (along the lines of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. It will be interesting to see how this situation shakes out.

That's like what? 0.00027%?

is if you assume that there will alwasys be a poorer country men can go to to buy wives.

Ha, ha, that's what they get! India will be next! I don't see how these countries can continue to grow when they treat women like dirt. In the past tribes would raid other tribes for women but now you can't do that (well not on a large scale). Hey, sounds almost like Atwood's book.

AZN M4M.

Those tens of millions of unpaired guys will have to go somewhere to have their 'needs' met.

The preference for males among Chinese is not as simple as it has been made out to be. There is a strong desire for a male heir, particularly among couples who have already given birth to a female. Among these couples with a firstborn female there is a far greater likelihood of their next child being male. However couples that produce a male as their firstborn prefer females. Among couples with a firstborn male the likelihood is high that the next child is female.

Why don't we just send all the fat chicks from the U.S. and Canada over there?

Somebody in the circles in which I run has pointed out that:

There may result too, a 'surge' in homosexual connections.

Between that and probably increased numbers of girls doing high-end sex-work...it's all a 'market' thing.

I can't fathom spending tons of money to go and "buy" a wife from some foreign country; a woman with whom I cannot even communicate. That just seems like more trouble than it would be worth. Why do these guys bother? Of course, in the case of South Korea, it involves women moving from poor countries to a much wealthier one, and that's an objectively good thing.

These trends have the potential to arrest population growth and possibly reverse it, and that's a good thing as well.

Katherine booby,it would have been more

then helpful if you told us if the bride

should be Chinese descent for the Government of China to allow the bride to

immigrate. Or at least Asian? Religious?

Your grade is an incomplete.

jerry booby,

The article did not indicate what China/Chinese would do except instituting a social security system that could curb sex-selective abortion:

The state-run media suggested that instituting a social security system could help curb the practice.

anon,

The article did not say anything about women's conditions worsening because of the crisis. It asked if the status of women would improve because of the crisis:

Will the status of women in China improve with the serious shortages of them? Not necessarily, if you consider the case of South Korea.

The original article about S Korea also stated that women's status does not improve when there is a shortage of females. It didn't say anything about women's status getting worse. What happened there is marriage went global.

The piece does suggest that the status of women will not necessarily improve when there are shortages of females in countries that prize male offspring. Instead, marriage will just go global.

"Why don't we just send all the fat chicks from the U.S. and Canada over there?" - Jose

What! And wipe out WalMart's customer base?

and have less influence in the country they are brought to, but if a shortage of females is a persistent phenomenon, which I doubt it will be, it will eventually lead to much more power for women because when there aren't much poorer backward places to import women from womens' opportunities to be more choosy will not be offset by the fact that other women are coming from someplace else into a situation where they are at a disadvantage.

it will eventually lead to much more power for women because when there aren't much poorer backward places to import women from

There will always been poorer Asian countries to import women from. The practice is reprehensible for poor women. My favorite solution is opening up society for gays (10% of any population), the valuation of girls and instituting social security in China.

when everyone is using the same technology and participating fully in the same global economy. I also doubt that the Asian countries are going to be the poor ones for much longer. Even without a large gender disparity it's a hell of a lot more work to find a woman to sleep with than a man so anyone who would "go gay" to get around the difficulties of finding a woman is gay already.