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It's common for media and academics to cite the statistic that China's one-child policy has led to anywhere from 30 million to 60 million "missing girls" that has created a gender imbalance in the world's most populous nation.
But a University of Kansas researcher is a co-author of a study that has found those numbers are likely overblown, and that a large number of those girls aren't missing at all—it was more of an administrative story that had to do with how births are registered at local levels in China.
"People think 30 million girls are missing from the population. That's the population of California, and they think they're just gone," said John Kennedy, a KU associate professor of political science. "Most people are using a demographic explanation to say that abortion or infanticide are the reasons they don't show up in the census, and that they don't exist. But we find there is a political explanation."
The 2010 Chinese census found the sex ratio at birth was 118 males for every 100 females. Globally the average is about 105 males to females. In 2015, Chinese state media announced all couples would be allowed to have two children, signaling the end of the controversial 35-year-old policy, but scholars and policymakers are examining how the ban could have lasting social influence in China on everything from elderly care to political stability.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday December 04 2016, @06:29PM
By the way, this is not a new theory, and the implications of so-called "ghost children" have been long debated in China. See, for example, this extended piece [theglobeandmail.com] about them from last year. China has now officially allowed registration of "ghost children" [theglobeandmail.com], but many are still facing logistical obstacles.
Anyhow, I'm not really sure that moving these "missing girls" from the "aborted/infanticide" category to the "ghost child" category actually should improve our perception of what happened in China. If parents selectively chose to register male children, while leaving female children unregistered, that means they generally went uneducated, unable to use most social services, unable to buy basic medication without an ID, unable to board long-distance buses or trains without ID, unable to secure "normal" employment. Without registration, they basically had the status of "illegal aliens" in their own country -- where they would be eligible for a LOT less services than illegal aliens would be, say, in the U.S.
I don't know about the researchers' motivations, but the media coverage from such things seems like it is often trying to excuse China -- "Hey, they didn't just abort or kill a bunch of baby girls after all!" No, instead, we're suggesting that parents selectively were condemning their girls to an "underground" life where they weren't eligible to participate in society or make use of basic services like healthcare or education.