Implications of the Gendercide Culture in Asia

By: Megan Kenslea

In 1990, Harvard economist Amartya Sen compelled the world with his essay about a growing phenomenon in Asia: an extreme shortage of women among the populations. Although published over 20 years ago, Sen’s essay, “More Than 100 Million Women Are Missing,” remains more relevant than ever today.

In his essay Sen wrote that 100 million women were missing in Asia; now, more than 20 years later, that number is surely larger. Death rates for infant boys are slightly higher than for infant girls, and biologically, the natural birth rate hovers between 103 to 106 boys for every 100 girls (Economist). However, over the past 25 years, the sex ratio in some Asian countries has increased to around 123 boys to every 100 girls, rates that “are biologically impossible without human intervention” (Economist).

Factors driving “son preference” in Asia
Assumptions abound about the gender imbalance in Asia and the factors that have caused the skewed gender population. Sen identified two common assumptions about the roots of gender imbalance – the first, that the imbalance is due to economic development (or underdevelopment), and the second, that the imbalance is due to an “East-West” divide.

While these two assumptions may contain kernels of truth, Sen argued that these explanations “fail to take into account other characteristics of these societies.” Economic and traditional factors drive son preference in Asia. There are myriad reasons that many Asian families and cultures place higher values on sons. Many Asian cultures operate patrilineal inheritance and future expenses are imposed more heavily on women and their families. In India, for example, the woman’s family is expected to shoulder the cost of often-expensive weddings.

Gendercide: the disturbing form of “human intervention”
But what form has that “human intervention” taken?

As family sizes shrink, either due to regulations like China’s one-child policy, or simply to modernization, many families have taken an active role in determining the sex of one or more of their children. “If you have only one or two children, the birth of a daughter may be at a son’s expense” (Economist). With the increased pressure to birth a son, a wave of new practices has emerged – some of which academics like Mary Anne Warren have labeled “gendercide.”

Warren’s 1985 book Gendercide identified and labeled a disturbing trend. In the early 1980s, with the advance of inexpensive ultrasound scanning technologies, sex-selective abortion emerged for the first time. It has since been made illegal in India and China, “but since it is almost impossible to prove that an abortion has been carried out for reasons of sex selection, the practice remains widespread” (Economist). Furthermore, in contrast to much speculation, these gender imbalances proliferate both in and outside of the “backwards” areas of Asia. “Modernization and rising incomes make it easier and more desirable to select the sex of your children,” making the practice of sex-selective abortion a problem that spans every echelon of society.

But sex-selective abortion is just one aspect of the much broader problem of gendercide. Female infanticide is not uncommon in rural areas of China and India. Chinese writer Xinran Xue describes an encounter with a peasant family in Shandong, where after a young mother gave birth to a baby girl, the midwife threw the living baby out with the slops. As Xue protested in horror, she writes, an elderly woman comforted her. “It’s not a child,” the elderly woman told her. “It’s a girl baby, and we can’t keep it. Around these parts, you can’t get by without a son. Girl babies don’t count.”

Implications of the missing 100 million
The implications of the gendercide culture in Asia have extended far beyond a missing generation of Asian women. The impact on the men who grew up alongside this missing generation is profound. Last year, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences conducted a study which determined that within the next ten years, “one in five young men [will] be unable to find a bride because of the dearth of young women – a figure unprecedented in a country at peace” (Economist). That same study found that in 2020, China will have between 30 million and 40 million more men under the age of 20 than it will women.

In China, there is a name for the abundance of bachelors: guanggun, or “bare branches.” A surplus of single men in any society can have serious implications for the welfare of that society. In societies where men are “untethered” to a woman or a family, crime rates – specifically violent crimes, including rape, other sex crimes and bride abductions – are on the rise (Economist). In order to offset the scarcity of women in various communities, some men emigrate to find brides, while others purchase brides through marriage brokers.

The high demand for women has created numerous problems, some of which, such as increased human trafficking, are alarming. Other problems seem less serious, but have created increased social clashes. Mixed marriages in traditionally homogeneous societies, such as South Korea, have caused social frictions that, though relatively minor, could pose greater social problems down the line.

Fixing the imbalance
Despite this rampant gender imbalance, some Asian countries have made great bounds in reversing it. In South Korea, the gap between men and women, once approaching 130:100, has begun to shrink, and has settled at about 120:100. Other countries, like China and India, have publicly outlawed sex-selective abortion. However, these laws are a shallow effort and have had little if any true impact on the endemic practice (Economist). A real solution will not likely come from any government, rather, from the eventual realization that while the practice may result in short term gains for family, it has slowly begun to cripple much of the continent now and for generations to come.