China has been facing rising gender imbalance since 1980s, with 37 million more men than women, which has resulted in serious social problems, the official People's Daily reported on Friday.
Today, among the 37 million extra men, there are 18 million more male teenagers under 15 than their female counterparts, according to a speaker at a symposium on sex imbalance held on Thursday in Beijing.
Statistics show there were about 108.5 boys born for every 100 girls in 1982. However, the radio grew to 116.9 against 100 in 2000.
Until 2005, the gender ratio rose again to 118.88 against 100, compared with the internationally accepted proportion of 104 to 107 men against 100 women.
The situation is worsening in five provinces of Jiangxi, Guangdong, Hainan, Anhui and Henan with sharp ratio as high as 130 against 100.
Officials from the National Population and Family Planning Commission said the imbalance has triggered some serious social problems including mercenary marriages, abduction of women and prostitution.
At the symposium, Li Huiying, an expert on women studies, said the problem is due to the traditional belief that boys are better than girls, an imperfect social security system and the abuse of ultrasound technology.
To curb the rising gender imbalance, China has taken a series of measures, including the bans of selective abortion and fetus sex detection, projects to care for girls and promoting gender equality. However, there is still big room for improvement.
In addition to these steps, Lin Mei, a sociologist, advised to weaken the patriarchy and advocated various marriage models, so as to help reverse the increasing sex imbalances. |
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