| Username |
Post |
| jj |
Posted
on 28-Jun-02 12:54 PM
Men without women
The Economist, June 22, 2002
IT HAS been more than 20 years since China implemented its harsh yet effective family-planning policy. By limiting urban couples to a single child and most rural couples to two, China has managed to slow the growth of the world's largest population. Now, however, the government must figure out what to do about the policy's unintended consequence: a huge and potentially destabilising sex imbalance. Statistics just released based on the 2000 census disclose that, in the country as a whole, about 117 boys are born for every 100 girls. The imbalance is extraordinary in some areas, exceeding 135 for 100 in southern Hainan province. The reasons are easy to fathom. When couples were free to have half a dozen children, there was a natural mix of boys and girls. When limited to one or two, they worked the system to produce sons. At the benign extreme, a girl's birth might simply not be registered, in the hope that next time the couple would produce a male. More worrying is widespread sex-selective abortion. Cheap but effective ultrasound equipment is now available throughout China and, though the practice is illegal, it is routinely used for pre-natal sex determination. The abortion that apparently often follows is devoid of taboo in China and extremely easy to arrange.
All this leads to worries about how society can function without enough women. The prospect of a large surplus of single men in China alarms Valerie Hudson, a professor at Brigham Young University in the United States. In a study to be published in the next issue of Harvard University's journal International Security, she notes that societies with large numbers of unmarried males tend to experience more crime, unrest and violence. While acknowledging that sex imbalance is only one of many factors influencing levels of violence, Miss Hudson points out that the 30m unhappy unmarried men China is likely to have by 2020 could become "kindling for forces of political revolution at home". There could also be an impact outside China, she says. The government may decide to use the surplus men as a weapon for military adventurism and "actively desire to see them give their lives in pursuit of a national interest". A terrifying thought indeed.
GRAPHIC: The consequence of family planning
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| jj |
Posted
on 28-Jun-02 01:00 PM
this is clearly an important topic...should raise lots of concern.
but, on the lighter side, heck, wouldn't you want to be a chinese lady? so many men to pick and chose from. i'm so tired of seeing my nepali female friends go through hell trying to find a eligible man for marriage. where are the nepali men in the u.s.? boston, maybe?? so many nepali guys just go back to nepal pick and chose from a ample bunch of ladies. don't get offended by this remark. just spoken out of deep frustration from seeing this happen time and time again.
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| Satya |
Posted
on 30-Jun-02 01:29 PM
This article highlights only one of the problems form China's notorious one-child policy - sex imbalance. There are other problems too.
1. As a single child in a family of seven (child, parents, and paternal and maternal grandparents) he/she is treated as an emperor. Child does not learn to help itself.
2. When the child is grown-up then he/she and spouce need to take care of at least five more persons (copule's child, child's grand-parents). It will be a very big social and economic burden.
3. Parents want their single child to be a super-human. They froce the child to study harder and harder. Example of an extreme case, one boy killed his mother becasue of such pressure.
4.One-child policicy is enforced by force. Now China has family planning law to control birth. Authorities use force, threat or other means to terminate "unlawful" pregnancy even just before few days of expected birth.
5. If the mother managed to hide the pregnancy and successfully gives birth then the family is already social, political and economical outcast if the family has not enough money to bribe authorities, pay fine and support the family. If the "unlawful" baby's parents are working in goverment orginizations (includes state owned factories, companies, that is 99.9% of the employers) then they are expelled from their jobs. How could they support the family? Who cares?
6. Every couple should have a licence to have a baby - age of the childless coupule does not matter. Without baby licence not a single doctor will dare to check-up the pregnant woman even though consultation is not related to pregnancy.
7. With easy access to ultrasound, unwanted pregnancy could be easily decided. No question is asked if a woman wants to terminate pregnancy. Abortion is great for population control!
And in Nepal abortion is still illegal but very common. Most of the unlucky babies who are executed before they could see this beutiful world are girls - I think. May be after 20 years from today jj's girl (I mean female) friends will as lucky as Chinese ladies are today!
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| villageVoice |
Posted
on 30-Jun-02 04:18 PM
Hey jiji-ji to pick up from where you left off...why are nepali guys going to Nepal to get married? Some of my male friends in US say no nepali girl in the US gives them any patta, and therefore they have no choice but to head home :)
What say?
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| nonpretender |
Posted
on 30-Jun-02 06:03 PM
VillageVoiceji,
A typical male reply would be- "hey, I had this girl Miss XXX who used to follow me."
You touched the nerve of a lot of boys.
(Consider that to be my answer also!!)
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| Parakhi |
Posted
on 30-Jun-02 06:17 PM
Easy solution, let them read our Mahabharat again. Make it legal to keep more than one husband by one woman. "Dou Pa Dee" . Ha ha ... just kidding.
* By the way this system is in effect in the remote mountain region of Nepal and Tibet to date.
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| Logical Sense |
Posted
on 01-Jul-02 01:04 PM
A quick information Satya,
Nepal has recently passed a law legalizing abortion on a limited basis. In case of rape, incest and if the health of mother is in question, which I feel is a step in the right direction. Of course, it's implication is yet to be seen and how it is going to be enforced is up in the air.
March 14, 2002: "Kathmandu - Reversing 150 years of legal discrimination against women, today Nepal's Lower House of Parliament passed an amendment to the Civil Code that partially legalizes abortion and brings about sweeping changes in many other discriminatory laws" .....
http://www.planetwire.org/details/2455
- Logical Sense
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| lotsa fishies in the seas |
Posted
on 01-Jul-02 02:06 PM
jj,
one solution to your nepali female friends' problems finding eligible mates is to, as you say, "be a chinese['s] lady".
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| jj |
Posted
on 01-Jul-02 05:06 PM
satyaji, i really liked your analysis. certainly there are major issues that should concern us all. thanks for summarizing them so nicely.
and, well, not sure what to say about catching a nepali man - i guess you're right, might need to start fishing in chinese waters! :)
i will say, however, that there are few avenues for nepali men and women to meet and i can see that men and women all over the country have different perspectives on the marriage situation because of who we know and how far our social circles reach. i never realized that nepali men tend to go back for a woman because the ladies here didn't show any interest. khai - don't know what it is but would be interesting to document the cases and see what people do think. it would be cool to see if there are changes in attitudes also.
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