# Skewed Chinese Sex Ratios **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 12, 2010, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skewed-chinese-sex-ratios/524669 "2010-01-12T16:10:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2010, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skewed-chinese-sex-ratios/524669/21 "2010-01-13T20:16:15Z")
Every 119th woman gets 18 extra husbands. Problem solved. Or, televised gladiator fights to the death for large cash prizes. Problem solved. C’mon, give me a tough one! ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2010, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skewed-chinese-sex-ratios/524669/22 "2010-01-15T05:15:05Z")
Struck me one day when I picked up my then first grade daughter at the end of the school day. Note Shanghai is pretty modern and a lot of parents prefer to have girls. At least there is not a huge bias toward boys like peasants have. All the classes line up. Every class had a line of boys and girls, and \*every \*line had a couple more boys than girls. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2010, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skewed-chinese-sex-ratios/524669/23 "2010-01-15T06:39:15Z")
There are also indications (although the last time I heard of it, the differences weren’t large enough to be considered solidly significant) that there may currently be more Chinese women emigrating alone (and those often marry someone from the place they’ve migrated to) than Chinese men emigrating alone (and those are more likely to want a Chinese bride). If true, it’s not helping the numbers. Yes, there was a sale on parenthesis, why do you ask? ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skewed-chinese-sex-ratios/524669/24 "2010-01-21T01:48:01Z")
What is the global ratio of women to men? Does it all even out? ---
**Author:** ![appleciders](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85f322/32.png) [@appleciders](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/appleciders)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skewed-chinese-sex-ratios/524669/25 "2010-01-21T03:14:24Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#): > > What is the global ratio of women to men? Does it all even out? IIRC, a normal balance in humanity has slightly more men than women. Men are more likely to be conceived, or carried to full term, or something. In a normal society, more boys are born than girls. There’s a parallel problem going on in India right now with parents determining the gender of a baby, then aborting it if it’s a girl. I believe there’s legislation in place to prevent parents from determining the gender of the baby in the womb to prevent this. ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skewed-chinese-sex-ratios/524669/26 "2010-01-21T03:20:21Z")
It makes more sense to worry about the ratio of heterosexual men and women that want to get married than the ratio of total men to women alive. ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skewed-chinese-sex-ratios/524669/27 "2010-01-21T03:25:33Z")
> [@appleciders](#): > > There’s a parallel problem going on in India right now with parents determining the gender of a baby, then aborting it if it’s a girl. I believe there’s legislation in place to prevent parents from determining the gender of the baby in the womb to prevent this. In China, at least in my experience in Shanghai, the public hospitals (where 99% of all Chinese go to get health and maternity care) will not tell you the sex on the ultrascan. Of course, the private hospitals will do so unofficially. ---
**Author:** ![kidneyfailure](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9f8e36/32.png) [@kidneyfailure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidneyfailure)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skewed-chinese-sex-ratios/524669/28 "2010-01-21T03:46:04Z")
> [@Palo\_Verde](#): > > The women benefit from having a more economically comfortable life in China. What do they do, leave the country every three months to renew their tourist visas? I don’t think China gives any special kind of unlimited visa or unlimited residency and work rights to a foreign spouse (then again, I’ve never checked. I probably should, though). ---
**Author:** ![Taomist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/53a042/32.png) [@Taomist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taomist)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skewed-chinese-sex-ratios/524669/29 "2010-01-21T03:48:45Z")
I will have to revisit whatever browserland I ended up in a few weeks ago, but I have read at least one theory that soy and pesticides are actually responsible for more boys being born than girls, in China as well as other places. Crap, now I have to go find a cite \>.\< ---
**Author:** ![dangermom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@dangermom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dangermom)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skewed-chinese-sex-ratios/524669/30 "2010-01-21T04:00:32Z")
> [@appleciders](#): > > IIRC, a normal balance in humanity has slightly more men than women. Men are more likely to be conceived, or carried to full term, or something. In a normal society, more boys are born than girls. Absent any intervention, there are slightly more boys born than girls, but boys are also more fragile–they die a bit easier (both in utero and after birth) and suffer a bit more often from birth defects. So it ends up pretty even. > [@](#): > > There’s a parallel problem going on in India right now with parents determining the gender of a baby, then aborting it if it’s a girl. I believe there’s legislation in place to prevent parents from determining the gender of the baby in the womb to prevent this. IIRC, ultrasounds are illegal in India to try to combat this problem. So people get illegal ultrasounds, but I hope it does help some. [Here’s an article.](http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0113/p01s04-wosc.html) ---
**Author:** ![kidneyfailure](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9f8e36/32.png) [@kidneyfailure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidneyfailure)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skewed-chinese-sex-ratios/524669/31 "2010-01-21T04:21:25Z")
> [@Taomist](#): > > I will have to revisit whatever browserland I ended up in a few weeks ago, but I have read at least one theory that soy and pesticides are actually responsible for more boys being born than girls, in China as well as other places. > Crap, now I have to go find a cite \>.\< It’s also been attributed to a Hepatitis epidemic ---
**Author:** ![Taomist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/53a042/32.png) [@Taomist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taomist)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skewed-chinese-sex-ratios/524669/32 "2010-01-21T04:37:37Z")
Yar, and what little I can find indicates that in the US, as well, male birthrates are higher than females. Thing is…what’s ‘abnormal’ about it? Darwin would say ‘Guys go fight, die young; duh more are born’. Still looking for cites \>.\< ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skewed-chinese-sex-ratios/524669/33 "2010-01-21T04:46:42Z")
The Wikipedia article on[Human Sex ratio](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sex_ratio) has some maps where you can easily see the sex ratios. Interesting ---
**Author:** ![Mississippienne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d2c977/32.png) [@Mississippienne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mississippienne)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skewed-chinese-sex-ratios/524669/34 "2010-01-21T06:11:34Z")
Russia has a normal sex ratio at birth, but Russian men die younger on average than Russian women, leaving a decent sized population of women without mates. Perhaps China and Russia should simply exchange a few million of either sex. ---
**Author:** ![Rich\_Mann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ce73a5/32.png) [@Rich\_Mann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rich_Mann)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 9:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skewed-chinese-sex-ratios/524669/35 "2010-01-21T09:44:59Z")
> [@Markxxx](#): > > The Wikipedia article on[Human Sex ratio](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sex_ratio) has some maps where you can easily see the sex ratios. Interesting Looking at the top map, I’m wondering why there’s a shortage of women in Saudi Arabia. Do they just sneak off? (I would) ---
**Author:** ![wolfman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a8b319/32.png) [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skewed-chinese-sex-ratios/524669/36 "2010-01-21T11:24:54Z")
What the hell happened to all the men 15-65 in Northern Mariana? > **[List of sovereign states by sex ratio](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_sex_ratio)** > > The human sex ratio is the comparative number of males with respect to each female in a population. This is a list of sex ratios by country or region. > The table's data is from The World Factbook unless noted otherwise. It shows the male to female sex ratio by the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States. If there is a discrepancy between The World Factbook and a country's census data, the latter may be used instead. > A ratio above 1, for example 1.1, means there are more males than fe... ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skewed-chinese-sex-ratios/524669/37 "2010-01-21T11:40:44Z")
> [@Rich\_Mann](#): > > Looking at the top map, I’m wondering why there’s a shortage of women in Saudi Arabia. Do they just sneak off? (I would) Those that don’t sneak off get stoned to death. So I’d sneak off if possible, too. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skewed-chinese-sex-ratios/524669/38 "2010-01-21T11:55:35Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > Ther’s likely to be a lot of pressure in heavily-male areas to look the other way at prostitution, and that’s probably going to produce a spike in STDs. People say that, but where will the whores come from? With so few women, the vast majority should be able to marry, which won’t leave very many who would rather sell their bodies. ---
**Author:** ![GilaB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8e7dd6/32.png) [@GilaB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GilaB)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skewed-chinese-sex-ratios/524669/39 "2010-01-21T19:37:27Z")
There’s already been a rise in kidnapping of girls and young women, who are sold as ‘brides’ to families in other parts of China who can’t marry off their only sons any other way. Females being scarce doesn’t necessarily lead to an improvement in their status and situation. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skewed-chinese-sex-ratios/524669.md?page=1)