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Economics

性别与中国经济

May 18, 2021 Shang-Jin Wei

发自纽约—中国最新公布的人口普查结果证实，中国的男性人口比例相对全球标准而言处于一种危险的持续过剩状态。这种从新生儿阶段就开始出现的数值失衡有着几个重大经济影响——而且不仅仅是作用于中国自身。

由于女性的平均寿命要高于男性，所以大多数国家都是女多男少。比如美国2020年的性别比例就是每100名女性对应96名男性。相比之下中国最新的人口普查数据则是每100名女性对应105名男性。鉴于中国女性平均比男性长寿三年，因此这种“男性过剩”状况完全就是男婴数量异常高于女婴的结果。

通常情况下出生时的性别比约为106个男孩对应100个女孩。由于男童和青年男子的死亡率略高，同时丈夫的年纪往往要比妻子大一些，因此这么一个出生比例就是自然界确保育龄男女比例大致达到1:1的方式。

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 5 Comments on this article

Thaomas H May 23, 2021

Interesting, but just to quibble, an increase in savings (induced by daughterless families to increase the attractiveness of their sons or otherwise) does not necessarily lead to an increase in the trade surpluses if investment also increases.
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j. von Hettlingen May 19, 2021

Shang-Jin Wie highlights all the negative impact gender imbalance has on China and its relations with the US. As a result of its deep-rooted cultural preferences for boys, and its decades old one-child policy, China is going through a gender crisis, in which men outnumber women. The gender ratio of the total population ranged at approximately 105 males to 100 females in 2020, with millions of men being unable to marry and build a family.
The gender imbalance creates problems - ranging from economic inefficiency to instability as more men can not find a girlfriend or wive, raising the risks of anti-social and violent behaviour - all of which makes it harder for China to sustain its impressive growth. As the working age population plummets, it also shrinks the labour pool and hurts the economy. On the other hand, it drives up savings rates and drives down consumption.
The author points out how the skewed “male-female ratio may have contributed to between one-third and one-half of the increase in its trade surplus with other countries. Young men – and especially parents with unmarried sons – increase their savings rates substantially in order to enhance their relative competitiveness in the dating and marriage markets.” Wedding customs demand the groom to give his future in-laws a big betrothal gift, traditionally known as the bride price.
In a 2011 paper, the author and Xiaobo Zhang “found that the rise in the male-female ratio in China’s pre-marital-age cohort from 1990 to 2007 accounted for about half of the increase in the household savings rate during that period. The sex imbalance thus likely underpins an important source of tension between China and the US.” As savings rate increases, it also “tends to boost a country’s trade surplus.” Maybe!
Yet in the US, economists do not believe that trade deficits matter, dismissing the assumption that Americans’ failure to save money is the cause of their trade deficits.
In the Journal of Development Economics, the author et al say China’s “unbalanced male-female ratio also contributes to unsafe workplace practices, leading to many preventable injuries and deaths. A shortage of potential brides causes many parents with sons of marriageable age to work more and seek higher-paying but potentially dangerous jobs in sectors such as mining and construction, or jobs exposing them to hazardous materials and extreme heat or cold.”
This emboldens employers to “invest less in workplace safety, since there are enough people “more willing" to risk their health and accept" such jobs. Asccording to the author and his co-authors “accidental injuries and workplace deaths are significantly higher in areas with a more severe shortage of young women relative to men. And parents with sons of marriageable age account for a disproportionate share of the victims.”
Sadly the problem does not correct itself, and parents still prefer sons, despite the imbalance, because “discrimination against girls persists.” In the face of population decline, China has “progressively relaxed (but not yet ended) its family-planning policy.” The author urges policymakers to “now go further, and provide a significant financial reward to parents of baby girls."
Yet it is unclear whether “such a measure would simultaneously hasten the correction of the sex-ratio imbalance at birth and arrest the decline in the overall birth rate.” In 2015, China ended the controversial one-child policy, allowing couples to have two children. A baby boom was expected. But it has not materialised and it is very unlikely that it will. Women from the one-child generation tend to be assertive and career-focused. Their aspirations do not always include motherhood and they are less influenced by calls from the government.
“A more balanced sex ratio will lessen the need for many Chinese households to sacrifice current consumption for higher savings, and foster safer working environments. It would also help to reduce trade tensions with other countries.” Beijing should introduce and enforce policies to support working women – including single women – who want to have children.
Yet the lack of trust in the ethics of businesses and manufacturers and the power of local institutions to regulate them after a string of scandals related to children’s welfare, plus the benefits - improved living standards and a yuppie lifestyle - of the country’s economic growth, convince many Chinese women not to have children, or not to have a second child.
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Vincent Lin May 19, 2021

https://qz.com/848715/its-a-myth-that-china-has-30-million-missing-girls-because-of-the-one-child-policy-a-new-study-says/

John Kennedy, an associate professor of political science at the University of Kansas, and Shi Yaojiang of Shaanxi Normal University, said the common assertion that between 30 million to 60 million girls in China went “missing” as a result of sex-selective abortion and female infanticide is inaccurate. Instead, as many as 25 million went unreported at birth, but turn up later in official statistics, the study says.
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Sandeep Bhasin May 19, 2021

Add to this the preference of a boy or a girl child, with girls getting aborted in early conception stage itself in societies such as China and India, the ratio gets lopsided favouring males. China’s one child policy was a major contributor to this skewed ratio of male to female.
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Xin Zhou May 18, 2021

Another factor contributing to the imbalance is the discrimination against females in the Chinese job market. Both the availability of jobs and the equity of pay need to be addressed.
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