In ten years, China will have more boys than girls. Skewed sex ratios, a result of infanticide and sex-selective abortions, have become a huge problem not only in China, but also in India, South Korea, Singapore, and even some ex-Soviet states. Reasons for preference for boys include a desire to avoid the cost of dowries to be paid on the daughter’s wedding, a woman’s adoption into her husband’s family after marriage, and the expectation that male children will care for aged parents. Historically, people have blamed the gender imbalances produced by these attitudes on China’s one child policy, on poverty, or on lack of education. Recent studies show, however, that the disparity between gender numbers in China is in fact most common in areas with exceptions to the one-child rule and among more educated and more affluent families.
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