Over the past few days I’ve heard some coverage of the horrible earthquake in China, and the anguish of the parents whose children were lost as schools collapsed. I was struck when one reporter noted that for many of the parents this was their only child…. That got me thinking about the implications of the one child policy, which is now approaching its 30th year. Most of you who read this weblog know that I think that the Bare Branches argument is a serious one; in short, that the sex imbalance within China due to son-preference will result in social instability. But what about the fact that for so many older Chinese they have only one child to support them in the future? Obviously the greying of the Chinese population is something to keep in mind when we postulate the path of the power of the People’s Republic; China’s active workforce will start to shrink in the near future, while its dependent class will increase in proportion. But in terms of the irratonal bellicosity which is par for the course for ascendent powers attempting to stake out a place in the sun…I wonder how eager the Chinese will be to send their sons abroad if so many of them are their only sons? Does anyone know of any social science correlating levels of international conflict with TFR? There are obviously angles to analyze this problem theoretically via social evolution, assuming that each offspring is one iteration in a “game”….
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“Does anyone know of any social science correlating levels of international conflict with TFR?”
There is a book and several articles on this in German. You are alluding to the “youth bulge” theory, right? The first author to propose it was American. If you are really deeply interested, I could dig up the references, but I am not sure whether the original U.S. paper might not be gated, and I suppose you have no use for German stuff (The book in question purports to show that the youth-bulge theory is correct. Its author – a sociologist – unsurprisingly got published in the WSJ. He is also a Velikovskian. A frequent co-author of his – an economist – sat on the committee awarding the Nobel in economics. One German-language paper tested the thesis employing statistical methodology and found that the correlations that had been claimed to support the thesis just weren´t there.)
The level of bullshit being propagated under the name of demographics is just mind-boggling.
I expect that part of the common knowledge of readers of this blog is that German TFR is super-low – about 1,3. Strictly speaking, though, there is no German data, because German statistics only count a woman´s children from her current marriage (One UN agency relies on estimates that put German TFR at 1,6 – likely a much better approximation to the truth). But, of course, the damage has already been done, because the fantasy numbers were used to justify a sharp reduction in benefits for future German pensioners, one third of which are now expected to wind up below the poverty line. This fact, in turn, has become the driver for a sharp increase in the private pension insurance business. The people that originally introduced distortions into the German statistical procedures decades ago, however, didn´t do it to justify the current agenda of the financial industry. The reasons can be attributed to conservative Catholic ethics. Characteristically the young conservative member of parliament (29 years old, I think) who recently got a measure approved that will make Germany provide useful data again soon thought the motivation behind the data mess was penny-pinching.
Other examples of non-data: new research shows that the number of over-90-year-olds in Germany is 40% lower than claimed. John Bongartz demonstrated that Japanese life expectancy is overstated. The number of childless German female academics is overstated by 80%. Or just do a Google search on the TFR of Hongkong and look at what the divergence between the two most extreme data points is.
But, of course, there are lots of papers out there doing econometric calculations concerning the size of the “demographic dividend” China is allegedly cashing in on currently and will supposedly go without soon. If the Chinese data is only half as bad as the German data, these papers are worthless.
Actually it is harder to prove demographic influences on the economy than the other way round. Adding politics and international relations into the picture doesn´t exactly enhance the value of the results.
Two additional points:ebruar_2004.html
1) Two graphs summarizing the aforementioned critique of the youth-bulge theory can be found on this page (maybe the German captions don´t really present a problem): http://www.berlin-institut.org/newsletter/newsletter_f
2)I realize that gender imbalances are a different concern, but the data doesn´t offer any support there, either. That does square with simple intuition, doesn´t it? A deficit of females might rationally be expected to lead to increasing competition among males rather than more politically fungible collectivist attitudes. While Hitler was significantly more popular among women (the NSDAP got up to 13% more votes from women), there was no “oversupply” of men in the Weimar republic. In fact, due to the preceding war, any imbalance at the time likely leaned the other way.
A deficit of females might rationally be expected to lead to increasing competition among males rather than more politically fungible collectivist attitudes.
right, but the main way that historically beta males have been able to get more women is steal them from outgroups or emigrate. in other words, yes, there is increased competition; but there are losers. unless you kill them directly you need to do something with them. societies with lots of between group violence solve this; attrition takes care of any imbalances (in many societies of course the imbalance is due to older men who are polygynous, resulting in a large deficit of young women available to young men). by analogy young single lions often operate in cooperate packs to take over a pride.
While Hitler was significantly more popular among women (the NSDAP got up to 13% more votes from women), there was no “oversupply” of men in the Weimar republic. In fact, due to the preceding war, any imbalance at the time likely leaned the other way.
one example isn’t dispositive of these sorts of social hypotheses. and obviously ‘bare branches’ isn’t necessary, even if it may be sufficient.
btw, i’ve never heard of the “youth bulge” theory.
“the fact that for so many older Chinese they have only one child to support them in the future?”
My understanding is that this is a myth – not a ‘fact’.
Standard evolutionary theory attests that resources flow down the generations, from parents to offspring; and any support that offspring provide their parents during old age (if it happens at all) is vastly less than the investment of parents in offspring.
The myth probably arises from the half-way demographic transition phase when (temporarily, for a number of decades) the birth rate exceeded the death rate and people first began to survive into old age in significant numbers.
Of course many offspring will _want_ to support their aged parents if possible. But in situations of resource shortage and competition between between investing in one’s old (post-reproductive) parents and in one’s own offspring – the younger generation will win due to their reproductive potential.
Even in the modern world, it would be unusual to spend as much on supporting parents as on sending children to college; and it would be regarded as unwise (or unfortunate) to blow a kid’s college fund on a providing a luxurious accomodation and lifestyle for the grandparents.
Standard evolutionary theory attests that resources flow down the generations, from parents to offspring; and any support that offspring provide their parents during old age (if it happens at all) is vastly less than the investment of parents in offspring.
you’re missing the point. i am aware of something called evolutionary theory, but i don’t hold that it’s always the only lens through which one might examine social phenomenon which might not last more than 15-30 years (i.e., 1.5 generations). in a premodern circumstance very few adults would have two parents around the age of 70 whose lifespans could be extended by invesment in medical treatments at the same time as they had their own offspring, and, no siblings around to help them out and all the cousins might be in the same circumstance.
The myth probably arises from the half-way demographic transition phase when (temporarily, for a number of decades) the birth rate exceeded the death rate and people first began to survive into old age in significant numbers.
there usually weren’t that many old people to support you know. they died over time.
Even in the modern world, it would be unusual to spend as much on supporting parents as on sending children to college; and it would be regarded as unwise (or unfortunate) to blow a kid’s college fund on a providing a luxurious accomodation and lifestyle for the grandparents.
where did i refer to luxurious accomodation? keeping someone alive by feeding them and taking care of them, and paying for medical treatments, would not be a trivial cost on the margins.
I understand that there is momentum in human demographics but the CIA world factbook gives some interesting numbers
0.629% (2008 est.) – population growth per year
13.71 births/1,000 population (2008 est.)Birth rate:
7.03 deaths/1,000 population (2008 est.) Death rate:
-0.39 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2008 est.) — Net Migration
So, some of this is people living longer. However that growth in population is still high, and seems to belie the effectiveness of the one child policy.
Simplistically – in my head – If there were three generations ( each 25 years) , everyone died at 75, everyone coupled , and the middle generation had a one child policy enforced on it then for births to be twice the yearly death rate the oldest generation would have had to had 4 kids on average. Was this the case in China two generations ago?
Maybe, I suppose. Or close enough. But does this time period include the cultural revolution, and the famines?
china had a really high TFR during the mao period. i read that it was around 5 before the one child policy. but the policy isn’t absolutely enforced in rural areas, so it the “one child” e(x) is more realistic for those in urban areas. rural families get exemptions if they have a daughter first and what not i think. and people can pay fines to get around it….
“in many societies of course the imbalance is due to older men who are polygynous, resulting in a large deficit of young women available to young men”
Very high levels of smoking among men in China may attenuate this effect.
China’s TFR statistics are of questionable utility due to it’s possible unreliability, particularly if as Peter mentioned demographic data even Germany issues. Depending on your political bent, you can argue that they are lower than the official figures or higher.
The bare branches theory at least the form advocated by Hudson and Den Boer is heavily flawed due to over relying on brute biological determinism when drawing from extremely complex social webs involving a staggering number of individuals. The inverse sexism of euro-feminists man haters gone wild goes a long way in explaining this but that is another story.
The authors overlook one critical factor, the surplus males in China are going to be overwhelmingly only sons or second sons, as opposed to historically the “n”th son who is several unfortunate deaths away from inheriting. This alone makes the Chinese gender balance situation unprecedented and unique.
Peter Müller, TFR is calculated also on the basis of a demographic (computer) model, and not on the basis of the number of registered births per married woman. The models are validated by indirect methods too. The political use of this or that number out of context is another thing, but no self-respecting statistician playes any role in that theater.
Regarding the supposed relation between belicosity and excess males, it has been never proved. There are many examples of unbalanced societies that were peaceful. Buenos Aires at the turn of the century comes to my mind: it had about 1 million excess male immigrants. Strong police and legal prostitution made the place livable, almost enjoyable.
Peter Müller: “I expect that part of the common knowledge of readers of this blog is that German TFR is super-low – about 1,3. Strictly speaking, though, there is no German data, because German statistics only count a woman´s children from her current marriage (One UN agency relies on estimates that put German TFR at 1,6 – likely a much better approximation to the truth).”
Can’t they calculate TFR from yearly births and current cohort sizes, while making a couple of plausible assumptions? What do exercises like that tell about the TFR?
no self-respecting statistician playes any role in that theater.
My point was that most members of a whole generation of German demographers did indeed “play a role in that theater” and that self-respect as you define it seems to be mostly a newer development that is spreading only since the old professors have become emeriti.
And, well, the 1.3 TFR number that you will find reprinted just about everywhere is not what you get by doing a limited census and running a computer simulation against it. In fact, what you derive from that exercise is the number I quoted (1.6) or some value that is only slightly lower than 1.6 (somewhere between 1.52 and 1.6) and thus not sufficient reason to have much of a debate about that UN figure.
one example isn’t dispositive of these sorts of social hypotheses
Granted. I realized belatedly that you were talking about a concept different from what I had thought initially. Doesn´t mean that the statistics for “bare branch” work out better, though. The proof is here: http://www.xist.org/earth/pop_gender.aspx
Look up Rwanda and Uganda. Compare to Quatar, Bahrain and Kuwait. Someone has done a correlation analysis linking this dataset to the data about wars and conflicts, but I just cannot find it right now. And if you want to go back in history, you start having to make questionable assumptions about historical gender ratios, rendering the effort useless. Essentially your dismissal is more appropriate to the proposition advanced by den Boer, Glover, Poston, Hudson etc. than to the views of those who have received it somewhat unenthusiastically.
steal them from outgroups or emigrate
b) is certainly happening, and given that a) population growth has already come to a halt in many countries, and b) Chinese tend to have usable skills, there doesn´t seem to be anything wrong with them emigrating to Africa, Europe and America. So that´s the likely outcome. When has stealing wives from outgroups last been successfully employed as a demographic strategy or served as a safety valve? Certainly not in the two bloodiest wars of the 20th century. It´s just not a modern concept in any way, shape or form. It´s not that I can´t think in these terms – in fact, I could propose a variation on the thesis such that war winners may not really steal women, but take advantage of the situation by erecting an economic hegemony and profiting from immigration streams whose composition tilts toward the sex that is in short supply -, but there is just no evidentiary spoon to consume that pudding of a hypothesis with. It´s all in the imagination – sort of like going back to eating with your fingers, except that in the realm of abstractions we usually seem to be less inhibited…
And, well, the 1.3 TFR number that you will find reprinted just about everywhere is not what you get by doing a limited census and running a computer simulation against it. In fact, what you derive from that exercise is the number I quoted (1.6) or some value that is only slightly lower than 1.6 (somewhere between 1.52 and 1.6) and thus not sufficient reason to have much of a debate about that UN figure.
Peter, can you cite any sources for this? Even just the UN figure, perhaps? I admit I’m skeptical. In a recent interview with Der Spiegel, the German Family Minister (or whatever her title is) argued that her policies had raised the German tfr from 1.32 in 2006 to 1.45 in 2007 (figures may not be exact, but it was definitely from the 1.3 to the 1.4 range). No disrespect meant, but seems to me that she should know what she’s talking about, seeing as to how it’s her job to know.
steal them from outgroups or emigrate
It may not be done exactly this way, but are you aware of the vast number of American men in military service who in WWII, the occupation afterwards or the Korean war wound up with wives from Germany or Japan or other nations in the area? It’s a pretty substantial # based solely on anecdotal evidence. Another large group are people who fled to the U.S. due to persecution during the war. Of course this includes many Jews (a group that by and large was well educated and entrepeneurial), but it also includes a large # of Eastern Europeans who were fleeing both the Nazis and the Soviets. This latter group was mostly composed of wealthier individuals or those with high levels of skill who feared (correctly as it turned out) that they would not benefit from Soviet rule.
What Peter Müller calls the “youth bulge hypothesis” may or may not be what’s commonly known as the Easterlin hypothesis.
Marc gives politicians entirely too much credit when he says:
No disrespect meant, but seems to me that she should know what she’s talking about, seeing as to how it’s her job to know.
But then, perhaps the minister is actually the most senior bureaucrat in that ministry. German political and administrative organization is beyond me.
May Pole says:
Very high levels of smoking among men in China may attenuate this effect.
Don’t the French smoke at high rates as well? Indeed, just one generation ago there were very high rates of smoking among males in the country I come from, and yet, a great many smokers managed to find mates and have offspring.
But then again, maybe these smoking Chinese males are using novel techniques when it comes to smoking. Perhaps they do it during sex. That would be a problem, I guess.
Razib says:
I wonder how eager the Chinese will be to send their sons abroad if so many of them are their only sons?
I think you are analyzing the situation as if all parents and offspring are in the same situation. However, you seem to have forgotten a couple of things, like parent-offspring conflict and the differing cost-benefit equations for parents and offspring where the offspring are all female, vs were the offspring are all male.
If there is a large excess of males, female value is driven up, resulting in many more males being unable to find mates, because choosy females can afford to be even more choosy.
Of course, this creates pressure for those unmated males to come up with something big in order to gain a mate. Now that creates lots of problems, and I think that the parents (and the offspring) of the already successfully mated males/females would prefer that those unsuccessful males look outside the country for success …
Combine that with the tendency of those at the top wanting to cement their family’s hold on power, and you have an interesting situation.
“just one generation ago there were very high rates of smoking among males in the country I come from, and yet, a great many smokers managed to find mates and have offspring. ”
Richard, the point is that many older Chinese men who would be tupping young girls will die, leaving more of the younger girls to young men, so the effect Razib is talking about will not be as great as it otherwise would be.
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/04/27/cancer-china.html
Very high levels of smoking among men in China may attenuate this effect.
Smoking kills too slowly (50s, 60s). The main effects are percieved only when one is rather old already. It may atenuate the burden caused by excess of old survivors but not mating competence in youth and adulthood.
…
Anyhow there is certainly a huge problem (not just in China but all around the world) of excessive population growth. I suspect legal measures like tha one-child policy can only have a limited impact, while improvement of health has a negative impact (much greater rates of survival both for old and young). In developed countries, factors like education, cost of life, individualistic hedonism and availability of anticonceptive methods have stabilized the growth to reasonable levels but in the huge slums where most of the semi-illiterate population lives around the world this is not happening yet: people may have barely to eat but they do have many children and these children survive most often into adulthood. There are few opportunities for them and therefore they migrate.
Dealing with the problem country by country really provides no solutions. Retrieving basic health care is not an ethical nor politically viable solution. In my opinion the only solution is massive education and availbilty of anticonceptive methods. Of course religious fundamentalists all around the world, who rely on ill-educated people with huge reproductive rates, will oppose this. Shortening the educational distance between the Thrid and First World, while reducing the availability of uneducated cheap workers, is probably something many corporations and governments would not like to happen, at least too fast. But there are no other realistic solutions.
A demographic balance can only be achieved via education. Educated people often have other goals (even if they are just stupidly hedonistic ones) than just having children chaotically. If this is accompanied by availability of anticonception methods, then we may have solved this problem. With enough political will it should only take one generation.
All the native Chinese (with family still in China) all had daughters and cared for them immensely. Of course, you have to consider that all the native Chinese I’ve dealt with have been highly educated (PhDs), spoke English, were in the west and were professionals; so a rising middle class might ease male preference.
They did note that male preference was most common is the uneducated and poor.
“All the Chinese natives I’ve dealt with”
NationMaster has data on sex ratios from around the world. Evidently there is a positive relationship between sex imbalance and national happiness (the R^2 is 0.4).
Enjoy.
I have dealt with Chinese natives who were not highly educated (nothing past high school, I believe, because of the times …) and they too have had only daughters, which they have cared for greatly.
I think that this notion that Chinese people are throwing their infant daughters down wells in droves is a beatup by the usual suspects. Note also that poor people generally don’t have access to technology for determining the sex of a child before birth.
If there is a large excess of males, female value is driven up, resulting in many more males being unable to find mates, because choosy females can afford to be even more choosy.
Or female value is driven down as the sex trade ramps up to meet the demand.
Richard,
I hope you understand that I was not saying anything negative about the Chinese underclass. I was just offering up my anecdotal data.
I think that this notion that Chinese people are throwing their infant daughters down wells in droves is a beatup by the usual suspects. Are the reports of the growing gender disparity in rural China lies, then? I’d thought the difference was too stark to be accounted for otherwise.
Michael,
Yes, I understood that. I was offering further anecdotal data.
Samuel Huntington showed some youth-bulge plots with regard to Sri Lanka in Clash of Civilizations.
I should have mentioned that they coincided with surges in violence.
This guy has written something about it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunnar_Heinsohn
increasing number of young men will make a violent conflict more likely.
http://www.hs.fi/kuva/1135234955796
this graph is in Finnish but anyway… The percentage colours on the left say “percentage of young adults of all adults”. So merely a large young adult population seems to be related to violence… Red countries are the ones in which young adult population is over 50 % of the population.
Some of the best anecdotal evidence on this subject may be available here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZv-G7IISgs
Indeed, I can personally attest to several youth bulge plots communicated unto me by the author. As I remember, transformations were regularly applied to correct the bulges.
Unfortunately we’ve been legally separated for a few years now.
*HEH*
sorry
Are were talking about the difference between total fertility rate and cohort fertility? That produces a a discrepancy that’s similar to what you are talking about.
Do not forget that the same phenomenon of selective female abortion happens in other places where there is no one-child policy. One of the best known is India. In some villages of India there are almost no women and, yes, they end up being married to the wealthier males, while lots of men end up sentenced to a life of bachelorship. Young women in age for marriage in these rural traditionalist societies anyhow normally have no control on whom they are married, so it’s not just that women can afford to be chosier but that they become a more priced “merchandise” – either for marriage or prostitution.
The overall alteration of society is clear in any case.
Why should elderly Chinese parents expect ( DEMAND) their children to take care of them. When you can no longer take care of yourself, you should consider self deliverance. Euthanasia is a simple solution to many problems of elderly people. It should be encouraged more. Especially in the case of Alzheimers! Call me heartless but practical. I aim to do this myself.
“When you can no longer take care of yourself, you should consider self deliverance.”
That is nonsense. It is easy for someone coming from a country with pension system to make such statements. Chinese elderly people are probably much younger than westerners, so they requre only basic help. They cannot afford to expensive treatments anyway.
In some villages of India there are almost no women and, yes, they end up being married to the wealthier males,
Hmmm, one woman for every 100 males. That would be an unusual situation.
Can you give me the names of these some villages you are referring to?
Can you give me the ratios of males to females. Can you actually convert numbers like 952 females to every 1000 (oooh, look, some evil males have been killing 48 baby females) males back to the more normal ratio that is expressed in these cases?
Note, I have seen rants on the internet decrying the evilness of males and the patriarchy based on the ratio of 952 to 1000. I think Lubo? Motl got it right in this article” Female and male alarmists spam Nature.
Note 2: I am referring to his sentiments about people who refuse to think, not climate alarmism.
See, for example: Clandestine female foeticide rampant in Dharmapuri
The claim that an overall sex ratio of 941 females per 1000 males is evidence that selective abortion of female foetuses is rampant (their spelling retained).
Truly there are some ignorant people in the world. 942/1000 is 106 live males per every 100 live females …
Of course, this looks like it was written by journalists, who are pretty much the scum of the earth 🙂
Why should elderly Chinese parents expect ( DEMAND) their children to take care of them. When you can no longer take care of yourself, you should consider self deliverance.
Good manners? Common courtesy? They (the Chinese parents) took care of and provided for their children for a good eighteen years. When they get old, they ought to be able to expect a least a decade’s worth of payback.
One thing to keep in mind is this is not new in China.
There is much research on China, I know one book by Richard Smith, ‘China’s Culture Heritage: The Qing Dynasty…” he found pretty firm evidence that in poor economic times in the last dynasty of infanticide, mainly of girls (and selling girls into prostitution, early marriage, etc).
He also found there was a constant over supply of men, due to polygamy, in which wealthy men had multiple wives, this situation existed until the well into Guo Ming Dong rule…actually I don’t think it was fully banned until Chiang Kai Shek (Jiang Jie Shi) was in Taiwan and Mao was controlling China. There was not a lot of social instability in China but for the last 50-100 years of the Qing to my knowledge, but there were always a lot of men.
There were wars of expansion though, to the North, West, and Southeast.
I believe also, don’t think anyone has said this…in China if you were born under the one-child policy you can have two kids. I also know more affluent Chinese who have multiple kids, they just pay the fine…these are usually city dwellers who are rich by Chinese standards though.
Caledonian asks:
Are the reports of the growing gender disparity in rural China lies, then? I’d thought the difference was too stark to be accounted for otherwise.
Can you tell me what that gender disparity is and what it is at birth, at age 5 and between the ages of 25 and 30?
Can you tell me what the variance of the live birth rate is for different populations?
Can you tell me whether Chinese hospitals record premature infants that die within a few days as live births or still births?
I have seen claims that the conception rate is around 125 male conceptuses to every 100 female conceptuses. A large number of male conceptuses die before birth. Can you tell me what effect better maternal nutrition and medical care would have on the number of marginal male fetuses? Could it be that more of them will be recorded as live births but then go on to die within weeks or months of birth?
I think there are many reasons to regard the numbers being touted with suspicion and to be suspicious of claims that Chinese people (by the way, is it the fathers or the mothers doing the dastardly deeds?) are killing their infant female children.
“Chinese people (by the way, is it the fathers or the mothers doing the dastardly deeds?) are killing their infant female children”
It is the combined effects of abortions, killings and perhaps most importantly, treatment after birth. In many cases girls are not killed per se, but less money is put into their medication etc.
iemaatta says:
It is the combined effects of abortions, killings and perhaps most importantly, treatment after birth. In many cases girls are not killed per se, but less money is put into their medication etc.
Oh come on. See: The Effect of the One-Child Policy and Children?s Sex Composition on Birth Spacing in China, 1979-1993
Where they point out that there were exceptions, including one for parents whose first child was a girl.
Under those circumstances, parents who already had a boy would simply not have any further children, or abort without knowing the sex if they already had a boy, while couples who had a girl would try again for a boy.
I think we can account for quite a large difference from 105 to 100 with the mechanisms I have suggested without having to resort to believing that Chinese people are actively or passively dispatching their female infants. Moreover, in the country, access to technology to determine the sex of a fetus would be pretty much impossible, I would suggest.
OK, that last argument was crap. The numbers work out the same.
I still think that non-malevolent explanations apply.
Hmmm, one woman for every 100 males. That would be an unusual situation.
Can you give me the names of these some villages you are referring to?
No, sorry. I watched it in a documentary and can’t remember the name. The whole movie was about men in that village, where many were eternal bachelors. The one “starring” blamed his bachelorship for taking up on vices like alcohol and smoking. His elder brother was married but he was the only one of four.
The distortion is aggrandized because the few women tended to marry out of the village.
The data for all India surely do not reflect many local extremes like this.
Can you actually convert numbers like 952 females to every 1000 (oooh, look, some evil males have been killing 48 baby females) males back to the more normal ratio that is expressed in these cases?
“The ratio is significantly higher in certain states such as Punjab (126.1) and Haryana (122.0)”. From Wikipedia, source: http://www.jstor.org/pss/3092788 (needs subscription).
This ratios surpasses the figures of P.R. China.
Equally in China the situation varies from place to place. Again I cannot provide the original source but I have read (in BBC?) about towns where the young males are almost all that it is in their own generation.
I’d also point the interested reader to this document, which tracks changing sex ratios over the 1901-2001 period in different states.
Some are approximately stable and within a normal enough range (Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Tamil Nadur); some are suspiciously low or have fallen quickly (Arunachal Pradesh, Bihar, Goa, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoran, Uttar Pradesh); and some are exceptionally low and would seem quite likely to be product of some sort of malign intervention (Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Nagaland, Sikkim, Punjab). In some cases, these patterns have lasted over the previous century.
As for India as a whole, the sex ratio has fallen from 972:1000 in 1901 to 933:1000 in 200, a tick above the relatively normal ratios talked about above.
Nice piece of info, Randy. Thanks.
Well, I don’t want to be rude but there are a lot of shitty things happening in China. Major example is animals, which include both endangered and non-endangered species, from all taxa. For westerners live-culling of dogs and foxes and treatment of bears is very appalling, but same stuff happens to all sorts of creatures, for instance snakes. My father filmed some live-skinning of snakes in an outside market, it is just beyond belief. So, no, I don’t believe Chinese are a particularily empatic people.
No one wants to mention this animal-issue in order to avoid getting stigmatized but I will do it anyway…
Btw, I was just watching a documentary on African birth rate and women… and made me think a bit. I earlier mentioned that education is an important piece to control natality but after watching this I realized that female education and economical empowerment (they may go together somewhat) is maybe even more important.
Most women in the film said that they had little choice: that men took the decissions and they did not like to use condoms. The result: almost half the population under 14, no money to school them all (so girls specially are excluded from education) or to pay for healthcare.
It was quite apparent that if women had choice, some control on how many kids to have, there would not be such an overpopulation.
Randy McDonald says:
As for India as a whole, the sex ratio has fallen from 972:1000 in 1901 to 933:1000 in 200, a tick above the relatively normal ratios talked about above.
You do realized that those numbers pretty much straddle the so called healthy boy-girl ratio (according to the WHO we are told) of 952 to 1000.
You do realize, I take it that those numbers span a range of 103 (102.88) males per 100 females to 107 males per 100 females, and fit very well my claims that improving health of women will mean more marginal males survive gestation to be counted.
iemaatta says:
No one wants to mention this animal-issue in order to avoid getting stigmatized but I will do it anyway…
Remember Michael Vick? Remember that other black athlete who was fined back in NJ for cruelty to animals and has now had a run-in with the law in Arizona for the same?
These are people who have had the benefit of an enlightened western education.
Care to tell us what you think of African Americans as a result of those events?
You do realized that those numbers pretty much straddle the so called healthy boy-girl ratio (according to the WHO we are told) of 952 to 1000.
as noted above, the averaged numbers aren’t as impactful when we know state-by-state numbers. punjab is south of 900 to 1000, and punjabi villagers have taken to importing women from other parts of india (it’s a relatively wealthy state).
razib says:
as noted above, the averaged numbers aren’t as impactful when we know state-by-state numbers. punjab is south of 900 to 1000, and punjabi villagers have taken to importing women from other parts of india (it’s a relatively wealthy state).
Well, but with an average of 933 to 1000, overall, that suggests there are states that are north of 952 to 1000.
Can we conclude that people in those states are killing baby boys?
Here Sex ratio of human conceptuses it notes:
The sex ratio in each developmental week was analyzed in 551 conceptuses from induced abortions for medical or social reasons in Southwest Finland. The ovulation age of the conceptuses varied from five to 24 weeks. There was a clear decrease in the sex ratios with increasing duration of pregnancy. The embryonic sex ratio was 164, the fetal ratio was 111, and the total ratio was 117. According to the regression analysis, the sex ratios at the ages of eight and 14 weeks were 119 and 105, respectively. The results suggest that higher mortality of male versus female conceptuses is restricted to the period of organogenesis. Seasonal or monthly variation in the sex ratio was not found in the present study.
I would also like to point out that if the ratio is 125 males to 100 females and they all survive to birth, we would expect a live birth ratio of 800 females to every 1000 males.
By the same token the stats pointed to by Randy show one state (Kerala) with a ratio of 1058 females to 1000 males. Clearly they are killing lots of baby boys in Kerala.
Moreover, this whole issue is very complex as is indicated by the following article:
The Secular Trends in Male:Female Ratio at Birth in Postwar Industrialized Countries.
which found a long-term increasing male:female ratio in Finland (1751-1997) up to the post-war period with a subsequent decline.
It could very well be that these same factors are playing out in parts of India today.
Here is a link to the article that I referred to earlier, but this one allows you to read the whole article:
The Secular Trends in Male:Female Ratio at Birth in Postwar Industrialized countries
Please pay attention to the parts that point out that the ratio of males to females (SSR) rises with improving economies because less males die during gestation, and having reached a plateau, fall back towards more equal rates as people begin to plan their pregnancies more carefully.
(Bottom of the last column of page 750.)
“(by the way, is it the fathers or the mothers doing the dastardly deeds?) are killing their infant female children.”
Traditionally births were attended only by women. Considering the mother is probably not in a condition to do it, it was usually done by a midwife or relative of the father. However, I did read an old anthropological book published about 1930 about India. At one point, it quoted an old Brit who had heard the story from an Indian friend. The Indian gentleman said his mother had a baby girl during the night and the father, who was away, had sent word the child should be killed were it a girl. However, custom among these people (they were northern Indians but I don’t know what caste or religion) the father or brother had to hold the child while the deed was done. So the little boy was hauled out of bed and into the birth chamber where the midwife had brought water that had been getting very cold in two jars on the roof, and she poured water over the baby’s face. The brother watched the baby’s face turn blue and she then quickly died. I’ve read a lot about strange customs, but that technique stuck in my mind-had never heard of it before. Apparently this was done to all the daughters born to that couple and the Indian gentleman said his mother later in life used to have nightmares of her murdered children attacking her with hooks. So nobody was doing it for light reasons. Nasty business.
However, I did read an old anthropological book published about 1930 about India. At one point, it quoted an old Brit who had heard the story from an Indian friend. The Indian gentleman said his mother had a baby girl during the night and the father, who was away, had sent word the child should be killed were it a girl. However, custom among these people (they were northern Indians but I don’t know what caste or religion) the father or brother had to hold the child while the deed was done. So the little boy was hauled out of bed and into the birth chamber where the midwife had brought water that had been getting very cold in two jars on the roof, and she poured water over the baby’s face. The brother watched the baby’s face turn blue and she then quickly died. I’ve read a lot about strange customs, but that technique stuck in my mind-had never heard of it before. Apparently this was done to all the daughters born to that couple and the Indian gentleman said his mother later in life used to have nightmares of her murdered children attacking her with hooks. So nobody was doing it for light reasons. Nasty business.
So you are quoting what someone claims to have heard as proof that baby girls were killed?
What is it that convinced you? The nightmares that the parents allegedly suffered later in life?
Women (ceteris paribus) are born in slightly smaller numbers than men (100:105, roughly) but survive better. For some biological reason guys are weaker on average. By the age of 20 or so the normal ratio should be very close to 1:1. And in older cohorts women tend to be the larger fraction (being very marked differences at old ages specially).
If the median age in India is, say, close to 20 (it’s a young thriving largely underdeveloped country with very high natality and high mortality) then the ratio in every single state should be 1:1 or very close.
When men of all ages are significatively more than women it means that there is selective abortion or infanticide (or otherwise artifically caused much greater female mortality). The opposite is not true: it may mean just an elderly population, with birth rates under or close to the replacement rate and/or with large emigration of young adults, specially males (case of many Eastern European countries).
If you don’t believe me, check: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sex_ratio
Richard:
“You do realized that those numbers pretty much straddle the so called healthy boy-girl ratio (according to the WHO we are told) of 952 to 1000.”
Most of those numbers, yes, I quite agree, although I wonder about the causes of the rapid recent changes in some northern states. In a very compact area of north-central India (and in some outliers), however, the sex ratio is biased very strongly towards boys. Environmental factors might play a role, but statistics for the different units of Pakistan suggest that the Pakistani Punjab, an area bordering directly on those areas of north-central India with many environmental and cultural similarities, does not experience such an elevated ratio.