Tipping the scale: gender imbalance in China.

Nearly 30 years after the implementation of China's one-child policy, the population of the world's largest nation weighs in at an estimated 1.3 billion people--300 million less than was projected in the 1970s. Government officials attribute this decrease to the success of the country's strict family planning policies, citing population control as a necessary precondition for economic growth. China's policies have pushed it to the forefront of international affairs and made it is one of the world's largest economies. But the one-child policy, initially meant to last a single generation, has also proved to have adverse effects on the gender balance of China today. Already the country's male-dominated birth rates, school classrooms, and matchmaking services darkly foreshadow a growing gender imbalance. Amidst calls for loosening or doing away with the country's control plans, the Minister of National Population and Family Planning Commission, Zhang Weiqing, declared China's intentions to "firmly keep on the road" while reforming its system. Both academics and older Chinese generations are voicing concerns for the future, wondering whether China's one-child policy reforms will help the nation take a leap forward in bridging the widening gender gap.

In 1979, Deng Xiaoping's initiative to check China's population growth became formalized under the one-child policy, generally limiting couples to one offspring. Though the government granted exceptions for cases such as handicapped firstborns, choosing to raise additional children came at the cost of heavy social fostering fees. Additionally, campaigns proclaiming "later, longer, fewer" encouraged delayed marriages, greater time between births, and smaller families. Today the fertility rate for the average Chinese female is 1.75 children, a significant drop from 5.2 in the early 1930s. The combination of a traditional preference for boys and easily accessible technology for sex-selective abortions has resulted in an average gender ratio of 118 males born to every 100 females, with some regions reaching 130 to 140 boys per 100 girls.

The significance of a male child extends beyond simple patriarchal dominance, since boys are seen as extra hands for labor or farm work. Even with China's growing prosperity, elderly parents still expect males to take care of them and to pass on the family name in the future. Moreover, economic reasons may explain the preference for boys, as traditional Chinese inheritance law dictates that sons inherit property.

There are many consequences of the gender gap. The lack of females provides an incentive to traffic girls for prostitution and forced marriages. The kidnapping and selling of baby boys has become a unique institution in China, with most clientele unable to birth more children due to legal restrictions. One traffic ring in 2005 sold children for as much as 18,000 yuan (US$2,180), which is a relatively high cost for a country with an average urban per capita income of US$1,900. Furthermore, authorities estimate that by the year 2020, 30 million men of marriageable age will be unable to find spouses as a result of the severe gender imbalance.

In the meantime, parents and bachelors have already begun to scramble for eligible wives. With more females entering the workforce, fewer young women are marrying early and having children. As a result, bride prices have leapt up, leading some to believe that raising girls may be a profitable investment for the years ahead and that the gender imbalance will eventually self-correct. But most academics remain dubious. Boys serve as substitutes for China's missing social safety net, and without major structural changes, the sex ratio is unlikely to normalize on its own.

The Chinese government has responded to these issues with new policy reforms. "China has set the goal of lowering the sex ratio to a normal level by 2010," stated Zhao Baige, Vice-Minister of the National Population and Family Planning Commission. Recent efforts include the "care for girls" campaign, which strives to alleviate cultural discrimination against girls through a combination of education and subsidies. The government has initiated grants for families with two girls, with pilot programs in poorer provinces offering housing and monetary aid for families with only girls. Certain provinces allow couples with first-born girls to try again for a son. In addition, sex-based abortion is illegal, and doctors are forbidden to inform couples of the gender of their unborn child.

Nevertheless, China cannot expect its policies to effect change without a greater emphasis on expanding its currently weak social security system. With the country's increasing modernization, cheap and widespread ultrasound machines allow for gender identification before birth, and despite the heavy legal repercussions, bribery and claims of unwanted pregnancy are sufficient to gain access to abortions. Because boys are viewed as the providers for the elderly, parents might be more willing to discard gender biases if the government were to relieve aging families' monetary dependency on male offspring. China may soon have to look beyond its one-child policies for answers to equalize the growing gender gap.

staff writer MINA CHANG