Munindra Khaund
GENDER IMBALANCE:
THE PERILS IN CHINA AND INDIA
A web of seamless relationships is being woven across national borders
with untold economic impact worldwide. As a result, this unimpeded
spread of knowledge, capital, and trade is exercising a strong influence
on developmental trends, economic and human, in those countries that
benefit most from this expansion.
For example, in China and India, technology is contributing enormously
to an economic development widely applauded and envied globally, yet
at the same time, this rapid growth has engendered a potentially
disastrous change in the makeup of its human population. The ratio of
female-to-male births has become increasingly lopsided, a harbinger of
an acute social problem caused by gender imbalance and its attendant
ills.
A condition of gender imbalance becomes manifest when deliberate sex-
selection among babies takes place eliminating female fetuses, resulting
in a preponderance of male births. The World Health Organization norm
is 950 girls per 1,000 boys. The ratios for both China and India are
larger.
Gender imbalance is increasing in China due to the one-child policy, the
legacy of a society that legitimizes the death of a girl-child in the hope
of obtaining later a male. Nicholas Eberstad, in his study "Power and
Population in Asia", has concluded that a regional bride shortage in
China is in process of becoming a national problem. More than a decade
ago, Beijing University's chief demographer stated "the loss of female
births will affect the true sex ratio at birth and at young ages, creating
an unbalanced population sex structure in the future and resulting in
potentially serious social problems".
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The relative ease of foreign adoption of female babies adds to the
problem. In the People's Daily, a Chinese vice-minister of the State
Population and Family Planning Commission acknowledged, "99 percent
of Chinese children adopted by foreigners are girls, and boys under the
age of 10 number millions more than girls of the same age". In "China's
Quiet Export: Children", the author cites data derived from U.S.
Department of State documents: "U.S. parents adopt around 120,000
children a year, of whom one in six originates from foreign countries.
The largest source, China, accounted for over 6,800".
According to the United Nations, there are 32 million fewer women than
men in India. Sex determination tests are illegal under the Indian
Prohibition of Sex Selection Act of 1994. Nonetheless, in an effort to
avoid wedding and dowry costs, parents often continue to practice "son
preference".
Within India, in the states of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, the extent of
gender imbalance has become alarming. The World Development Report
2006 indicates that as early as 1993, there were "84 females for every
100 males" and that "child mortality rates are higher among girls than
boys". The report reveals "several cases of infant girls who were
allowed to wither away and die in circumstances that would undoubtedly
have prompted energetic action in the case of a male child".
Prabhat Jha and his colleagues, in a recent study estimate 10 million
female fetuses may have been lost in the last 20 years. Ashish Bose
and Mira Shiva's study, "Darkness at Noon", shows that "demographic
fundamentalism" is on the rise in India. Amartya Sen argues that this
selection process also aids in confirming the low status of women in
India. He coined the term "missing women" while referring to the female
"deficit" in countries like China and India.
India also has an increasing disparity of female-to-males fostered by a
culture that ignores, or at least tolerates, female infanticide. Much of
the anti-female bias is a relic of long-held cultural beliefs and social
norms. In the Mahabharata, an ancient religious epic of India, the
husband has the freedom to terminate a marriage if 'a wife... acts as
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she pleases, who is sterile or gives birth only to daughters or whose
children die young.' The belief that daughters are in some sense
"inferior" to sons pervades Hindu scriptures.
Amartya Sen indicates that, "when anti-female bias is in action, it
reflects the hold of traditional masculine values from which mothers
themselves may not be immune... what is needed is not just freedom of
action but also freedom of thought - in a woman's ability and willingness
to question received values. Informed and critical action is important in
combating inequality of every kind. Gender inequality, including its many
faces, is no exception."
In their book "Bare Branches: Security Implications of Asia's Surplus
Male Population", Valerie M. Hudson and Andrea M. Den Boer cited two
rebellions in Manchu Dynasty China wherein female infanticide was
prevalent thus leading to a disproportionately male society. The authors
point to instances in history, biology, and sociology to demonstrate that
"surplus males" will contribute to social disorder and higher crime rates.
Daniel Little's book "Understanding Peasant China: Case Studies in the
Philosophy of Social Science" mentions that 19th-century Chinese
rebellions were also concentrated in areas that were disproportionately
male. Their analysis indicates that low-status young adult men with little
chance of forming families of their own are "much more prone to
attempt to improve their situation through violent and criminal behavior
in a strategy of coalitional aggression."
In his book "Violent Land: Single Men and Social Disorder from the
Frontier to the Inner City", David T. Courtwright examines the historical
pattern of American violence and disorder. Historically, America has had
an abundance of young men, which was beneficial from an economic
standpoint. From a social standpoint, however, "young men who worked
hard also lived and played hard, often to the point of causing serious
violence and disorder. Endocrine research, bolstered by historical,
criminological, and cross-cultural studies, suggest that this tendency is
universal".
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Another perilous consequence of gender imbalance is its effects on the
treatment of women.
Martin Walker, in his article "The Geopolitics of Sexual Frustration", has
noted that sexual frustration is "adding a potent ingredient to an
increasingly volatile regional cocktail of problems that include surging
economic growth, urbanization, drug abuse, and environmental
degradation".
Acute gender imbalance in China and India contributes to grave social
ills - increasing prostitution, alcoholism, HIV/AIDS, and violence and in
the kidnapping and sale of women. A recent Radio Free Europe
commentary states that, "political and social stability in both countries
could suffer. It is feared that the millions of restless young men could
begin to vent their frustration through violence, crime, and political
extremism."
Recent studies suggest that between "one in three and one in five
women globally have been physically and sexually assaulted by intimate
partners in their lifetime". An UPI article on Monsters & Critics reports -
"Gurpreet, a 32-year-old woman in Punjab's Mansa district, said she had
married the eldest of three brothers, but after she had a son, her
husband forced her into a sexual relationship with his younger brothers,
including one who was only 16." World Health Organization report
warns, "Violence against women severely affects the spread of HIV/
AIDS". Women who are victims of domestic assault are twice as likely to
suffer poor health. In addition, the abuse they suffer is responsible for
the spread of HIV amongst women, given they are not in a position to
demand safe sex. Currently 39% of HIV-positive Indians are women.
Without proper state intervention, India risks an epidemic that could
cost millions of lives.
In a recent BBC report entitled, "India sex doctor jailed", a doctor was
taped telling a patient that she was carrying "female foetus and it would
be taken care of". Another report entitled, "India's 'bride buying'
country", states that, "Since there aren't enough local women to marry,
Haryana's men pay touts to bring women for them to marry and to work
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on their farms." The report further highlights that "most of these
women end up being used as sex slaves and then resold to other men in
what looks like a flourishing market in trafficking of women".
Navdip Dhariwal, BBC Correspondent comments in her report entitled,
"The 'curse' of having a girl" -- "In my parents' native Punjab, girls are
often killed at birth. It has skewed the ratio of girls to boys so much
that some villages have not seen the birth of a female in years.
Thousands of men in rural areas now have trouble finding a wife."
From an economic perspective, gender imbalance means more power for
Indian women to find a suitable husband. In this view, a woman is a
commodity, low in supply but high in demand, and hence has high value
and a better opportunity to gain a husband from among the large
supply of males. However, social and cultural factors may dominate
these economic factors. China and India have a long history of gender
bias. It is a practice rooted in a thorny mix of economic, social, and
cultural factors, especially dowry. In China and India, increasing
imbalance could mean a greater dominance of men over women, and
fewer women to fight for their rights.
The seemingly positive future will not prove so promising for China and
Indian unless measures are implemented to address gender imbalance.
Males in China and India face a future wherein 15% of them will not find
wives.
Gender imbalance is one consequence of the web of cultural, social, and
economic relationships affecting life not merely in China and India but
also in the U.S., U.K., and Canada. This complex social situation provides
China and India the opportunity to transform attitudes toward women
and toward the problem of gender imbalance. They must not ignore the
perils resulting from this distortion of sex ratios, just as other nations
need to watch their development with concern.
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