"The Worldwide war on baby girls"

http://www.economist.com/world/international/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=15636231

You should watch Children of Men. And read this blog.

This article discussed the effects of the sex ratios in the countries China, India, and South Korea. In China the government set a "one-child policy" which has caused many families to choose a make for their one child. Girls are either aborted or killed after birth. In five to ten years, one in five Chinese men will not be able to get married. The increased rate of young, and unmarried men, in these countries has several negative effects. It increases the crime rate as well as rape and prostitution rates. China also has the highest rate of female suicide between ages of 15 and 34, researchers believe this is because they are sad about killing their female babies. However, there is some hope because South Korea has presented sexual equality in the media more and the sex ration has begun to be more normal.

This has many economic effects. One that the article mentioned is that in order to be promoted most men really need to have a wife and children. Another way this has effected the economy in these countries in that families are saving more money. Families with sons are saving money so that they will appeal to prospective wives. In India, the price of a dowry has gone down, but the price of a bride price has raised.

This is a great ethical, political, and economic issue. Fertility rates are lowering around the world and it is truly scary. I predict that as these issues of sex ratios continue without change, it will change the world as we know it.

I think this expert from the article tells it all:

"XINRAN XUE, a Chinese writer, describes visiting a peasant family in the Yimeng area of Shandong province. The wife was giving birth. “We had scarcely sat down in the kitchen”, she writes (see article), “when we heard a moan of pain from the bedroom next door…The cries from the inner room grew louder—and abruptly stopped. There was a low sob, and then a man’s gruff voice said accusingly: ‘Useless thing!’

“Suddenly, I thought I heard a slight movement in the slops pail behind me,” Miss Xinran remembers. “To my absolute horror, I saw a tiny foot poking out of the pail. The midwife must have dropped that tiny baby alive into the slops pail! I nearly threw myself at it, but the two policemen [who had accompanied me] held my shoulders in a firm grip. ‘Don’t move, you can’t save it, it’s too late.’

“‘But that’s...murder...and you’re the police!’ The little foot was still now. The policemen held on to me for a few more minutes. ‘Doing a baby girl is not a big thing around here,’ [an] older woman said comfortingly. ‘That’s a living child,’ I said in a shaking voice, pointing at the slops pail. ‘It’s not a child,’ she corrected me. ‘It’s a girl baby, and we can’t keep it. Around these parts, you can’t get by without a son. Girl babies don’t count.’” "

Terms-

Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS)

Sex ratio- the ratio of males to females

Dowry- money given from the family of the bride to the groom

Bride price-money given from the family of the groom to the family of the bride