Nankai University Professor Yuanxin: "Severe Gender Imbalance Over the Past 40 Years"
In China, where the preference for sons has had a significant influence, there is a claim that long-term gender imbalance could lead to 30 million men becoming 'passive bachelors' unable to find spouses.
According to the Economic Observer on the 12th, Yuan Xin, vice president of the Chinese Demographic Society and a professor at Nankai University, recently stated in a media interview, "China has experienced a severe gender imbalance over the past 40 years, resulting in more than 30 million men being unable to marry Chinese women."
According to the China Statistical Yearbook, the birth sex ratio in China in 1982 (number of males per 100 females) was 108.5, exceeding the upper limit of the appropriate sex ratio of 107, and it soared to 121.2 in 2004.
Although the one-child policy was abolished in 2015 and the preference for sons has declined, bringing the ratio down to 108.3 in 2021, the gender imbalance remains.
From 1980 to 2021, the average annual birth sex ratio among 799 million births was 114.4, meaning that during this 42-year period, there were 34 to 35 million more males born than females.
Professor Yuan analyzed that this means at least 30 million men born during this period are unable to find spouses within China and must live as unwanted bachelors.
China's gender imbalance issue surfaced in September 2021 when children aged 3 to 5 began entering kindergartens. In severe cases, some classes reportedly had 30 boys to 1 girl. As of 2020, the gender ratio among elementary school students in major cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen was 52 boys to 46 girls.
Professor Yuan Xin expressed concern that as men face difficulties finding spouses, the costs associated with marriage, such as 'caili' (彩禮, bride price given by the groom to the bride's family during the wedding), increase, challenging the stability of family life and potentially leading to higher divorce rates.
He added, "Security incidents caused by single young men seeking to satisfy physiological needs could threaten social stability, and the unstable old age of those without spouses or descendants could become a social problem." He noted, "According to foreign cases, single individuals tend to have lower motivation for life and only meet minimal survival needs."
He also emphasized, "The myth that single people have stronger purchasing power is not true," and stressed, "Society must actively respond to resolve the gender imbalance, and the issue should be addressed through a national integrated management model."
Earlier, on the 8th, according to the Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua, Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Communist Party, recently signed the 'Implementation Measures for the Population and Family Planning Law of the People's Republic of China in the Military' in his capacity as Chairman of the Central Military Commission.
This measure aims to encourage marriage and childbirth among military personnel of marriageable age by allowing them to have up to three children.
This appears to be influenced by the decline in China's birth population and number of marriages. Last year, China's birth population was 9.56 million, falling below 10 million for the first time in 73 years since the establishment of the Chinese Communist regime in 1949.
The number of marriages in 2022 also dropped to 6.83 million, decreasing by 800,000 from the previous year and nearly halving compared to 13.46 million in 2013, nine years earlier.
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
