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Shortage of girls in China today
Journal of Population Research, May, 2004 by Judith Banister
China has the most severe shortage of girls compared to boys of any country in the world today, as documented by China's surveys and censuses up to 2000. This article evaluates data on sex ratios in China since before the founding of the People's Republic, and shows that the relative dearth of girls has become more extreme during the last two decades, and that the problem is real and not merely due to undercounting of girls. Daughters are lost primarily through sex-selective abortion, secondly through excess female infant mortality, and thirdly through neglect or mistreatment of girls up to age three, in cities as well as rural areas. Until recently, the dearth of girls was confined to second or higher-order births, but now couples in some provinces are using sex-selective abortions for first births. Maps show the geographical concentration of life-threatening discrimination against girls and its spread over time. Son preference, low fertility and technology combine to cause the loss of daughters in China today, and compulsory family planning and the one-child policy exacerbate the problem. The discussion includes what the People's Republic of China has done to ameliorate life-threatening discrimination against girls and what further steps might be taken to improve the situation.
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Keywords: sex ratio, sex preselection, sex preference, sex discrimination, sex differentials, China, infanticide, differential mortality, age-sex distribution, excess mortality
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China is reported to have a severe shortage of females in its population. However, concerns have been expressed that Chinese data are faulty and paint an alarming picture that is false. This article documents the evidence for the shortage from Imperial times, through the pre-Communist period and entire half-century of the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the 2000 census. It evaluates and analyses sex ratio data for this whole period, and puts China in global and comparative perspective. It is demonstrated that any errors in the data are minor and that after they are accounted for, the shortage of females in China is real and extreme. By establishing what would be 'normal' sex ratios in an East Asian population, it is shown how China indeed deviates from normal.
The article explores the origins and causes of the 'missing-girl' phenomenon and argues that it constitutes a real problem. The basic cause is strong son preference, which has resulted in a shortage of females for centuries or millennia. During the 1950s to the 1970s, when fertility remained high, the Chinese government vigorously promoted male-female equality and greatly reduced the life-threatening effects of the culture's son preference. Female infanticide and severe neglect of girls leading to their untimely deaths were reduced to the lowest levels ever seen in China.
In the late 1970s, however, as fertility dropped, family planning compulsion increased and the one-child policy was introduced, China's media reported a resurgence of female infanticide. Since then, the shortage of girls has again become extreme, this time primarily because of sex-selective abortion, and also female infanticide and neglect of young daughters. China is not alone; several other East Asian and South Asian countries have also been experiencing greatly distorted sex ratios at birth, though they do not have a one-child policy or required family planning. In all cases the problem can be traced to continuing strong son preference, rapidly declining and then low fertility, and the availability of various means to achieve the desired sex composition of children, or the desired sex of an only child. The article discusses what is and is not causing China's dearth of girls and highlights what the government is doing to ameliorate this problem and what further contributions they and others could make.
Demographic data quality
In recent decades, some journalists, scholars and Chinese public officials have discounted the notion that China has a severe shortage of girls by commenting that people hide their daughters (not sons) from being registered or counted, in the hope of being able to try again for a son. It is known that births are underreported in most data sources, and it is argued that female births are less completely reported than male births (Gao 1993; Tu 1993; Zeng et al. 1993; Peng 1993; Croll 2000: 28-30). The high reported sex ratio at birth (SRB) of the 2000 census, 116.9 boys per 100 girls, would at first appear to support this argument but the fact that it is entirely consistent with the sex ratio of counted infants, 117.8, given higher female than male reported infant mortality (China NBS 2002, Vol. 2: 196, 570, 713) suggests that births are no more underreported for one sex than the other, at least in relation to the reporting of infants.
The picture is also mixed for sex-selective underenumeration of children. In the 1990 census, there was no more undercounting of young children of one sex than the other (Banister 1992: Table 2; Johansson and Arvidsson 1994: 67-73). The uncounted boys and girls at age 0-4 in 1990 were counted by the time they were 5-9 in the 1995 one per cent survey, and again at 10-14 in the 2000 census. The sex ratios of these cohorts were almost as distorted when fully counted as when the children were undercounted. Girls who were "missing' from the 1990 census, as shown by distorted child sex ratios, did not re-emerge in subsequent censuses more than uncounted boys. However, in some more recent enumerations girls have been undercounted more than boys of the same age, for example at ages 1-3 in the 1995 one per cent survey (China NBS 1997: 11). This may also be the case in the 2000 census: if a correction is made for this possible tendency, the sex ratio of the population aged 0-4 would be about 117-118, instead of the counted 120.
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