Attitudes to and practices regarding sex selection in China.
This paper explores the problem of China's 'missing' girls--estimated to run into many millions. It considers the impact of the underpinning Confucian value system in China that has produced a culture of son preference and which, together with China's compulsory family planning program and 'one child policy', has effectively established a 'one son policy'. Discussion of the various means by which the birth or survival of daughters have traditionally been prevented provides the context for identifying the contribution of new sex selection procedures to the maintenance of son preference in contemporary Chinese society. The paper concludes that China's son preference is not simply a personal problem for the millions of 'missing girls' who were destined to live a shorter life and for the surviving girls who continue to face considerable discrimination simply because they are of the 'wrong' sex; it heralds a social and demographic disaster of major proportions for which neither the government nor the people of China appear to have the will or the means to forestall.
Lai-wan
Chan Cecilia
CC
Centre on Behavioral Health, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
Blyth
Eric
E
Hoi-yan
Chan Celia
CC
D002681:China; D003469:Culture; D016656:Family Planning Policy / Q000266:history*; D005260:Female; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011155:Population Control / Q000266:history; D011247:Pregnancy; D012743:Sex Preselection / Q000266:history*