This week I will be blogging Mara Hvistendahl's Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men.
The biggest danger of masses of men who will never marry is that they will be violent and commit crimes. It is possible they will be used for war, but that is not so predictable from the sheer demographic facts.
The best news is that Hvistendahl thinks the massive sex imbalance is a temporary stage in a country's economic development. As evidence she cites the fact that in 2007, South Korea had a natural sex ratio for the first time in twenty years. It is the first country to start to come back from a massive sex imbalance. They still have super low fertility - 1.22 children per woman - but South Korea seems to have turned a corner in both its sex ratio and its overall fertility. This gives hope that the other massively imbalanced countries can begin to walk back from the precipice.
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Unnatural Selection 4: The Silver Lining
This week I will be blogging Mara Hvistendahl's Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men.
The shortage of women in many Asian and Eastern European countries does have some silver linings.
In India, the need for brides is leading to some cross-caste marriages that would have been unthinkable a generation or so ago.
In East Asia, "foreign brides" make up so large a percentage of new marriages that old national prejudices are being modified or even given up.
The poor women who marry out of poor countries, such as Vietnam, into developing countries can make a better life for their children than they could have at home.
The shortage of women in many Asian and Eastern European countries does have some silver linings.
In India, the need for brides is leading to some cross-caste marriages that would have been unthinkable a generation or so ago.
In East Asia, "foreign brides" make up so large a percentage of new marriages that old national prejudices are being modified or even given up.
The poor women who marry out of poor countries, such as Vietnam, into developing countries can make a better life for their children than they could have at home.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Unnatural Selection 3: Why Republicans Promoted Abortion
This week I will be blogging Mara Hvistendahl's Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men.
Gen. William Draper was a friend of Eisenhower and a staunch conservative Republican. When he oversaw the occupation of Japan just after the war he became a big proponent of abortion – for Asians. He saw it as a way to prevent poverty, and therefore communism. First in Japan, and then in South Korea, he pushed abortion and supported eugenics.
The ruling classes in those countries also supported abortion, thinking only the poor would use it. However, it was the educated women of the urban middle class who were especially drawn to abortion as a part of their planned parenthood. Though abortion was contrary to Confucian and Buddhist ethics, the developing Asian economies, under pressure from the Western aid agencies to aggressively control their population growth in exchange for aid, normalized abortion.
The ruling class in this country, as in other countries, supported abortion in the '50s and '60s . They did so not as a feminist movement for women's control of themselves. They supported abortion as a eugenic movement to control the poor.
Gen. William Draper was a friend of Eisenhower and a staunch conservative Republican. When he oversaw the occupation of Japan just after the war he became a big proponent of abortion – for Asians. He saw it as a way to prevent poverty, and therefore communism. First in Japan, and then in South Korea, he pushed abortion and supported eugenics.
The ruling classes in those countries also supported abortion, thinking only the poor would use it. However, it was the educated women of the urban middle class who were especially drawn to abortion as a part of their planned parenthood. Though abortion was contrary to Confucian and Buddhist ethics, the developing Asian economies, under pressure from the Western aid agencies to aggressively control their population growth in exchange for aid, normalized abortion.
The ruling class in this country, as in other countries, supported abortion in the '50s and '60s . They did so not as a feminist movement for women's control of themselves. They supported abortion as a eugenic movement to control the poor.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Unnatural Selection 2: Both Sexism and Feminism Support Sex-Selection Abortion
This week I will be blogging Mara Hvistendahl's Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men.
In the '60s, when men were in charge of population planning and sexism was the norm, Western public health agencies thought sex-selection abortions in developing countries were an uncontroversial and rational way to help families get the boy they wanted without producing unnecessary girls on the way. This seemed like a more ethical path to population control than the more coercive measures they considered because the families were doing the choosing.
By the '80s, when women were in charge of population planning and feminism was the norm, Western public health agencies thought sex-selection abortions in developing countries were an uncontroversial and rational way to help women control their bodies. Sex-selection was a small price to pay for securing the right to abortion.
In the '60s, when men were in charge of population planning and sexism was the norm, Western public health agencies thought sex-selection abortions in developing countries were an uncontroversial and rational way to help families get the boy they wanted without producing unnecessary girls on the way. This seemed like a more ethical path to population control than the more coercive measures they considered because the families were doing the choosing.
By the '80s, when women were in charge of population planning and feminism was the norm, Western public health agencies thought sex-selection abortions in developing countries were an uncontroversial and rational way to help women control their bodies. Sex-selection was a small price to pay for securing the right to abortion.
Monday, July 11, 2011
Unnatural Selection 1: Sex Selection Begins With the Second Pregnancy
This week I will be blogging Mara Hvistendahl's Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men.
Hvistendahl is trying to figure out why, exactly, there have been so many fewer female births in some Asian countries over the past generation.
She thinks that smaller family size in developing countries means that the risks of having no boys by natural means goes up from about one in 10 if you have three children, to one in four if you have only two. Thus, richer, smaller families are going with nature in first births, but in each successive pregnancy are more likely to abort a girl, but keep a boy.
She cites as evidence the sex ratio of boys to girls at birth in South Korea in 1989. The natural ratio is about 105 boys for every 100 girls.
First birth: 104/100
Second birth: 113/100
Third birth: 185/100
Fourth birth: 206/100
Hvistendahl is trying to figure out why, exactly, there have been so many fewer female births in some Asian countries over the past generation.
She thinks that smaller family size in developing countries means that the risks of having no boys by natural means goes up from about one in 10 if you have three children, to one in four if you have only two. Thus, richer, smaller families are going with nature in first births, but in each successive pregnancy are more likely to abort a girl, but keep a boy.
She cites as evidence the sex ratio of boys to girls at birth in South Korea in 1989. The natural ratio is about 105 boys for every 100 girls.
First birth: 104/100
Second birth: 113/100
Third birth: 185/100
Fourth birth: 206/100
Sunday, July 10, 2011
The Reality of Two-Year-Old Octuplets
Nadya Suleman, the "Octomom," was on television with her eight famous children, with some help from her oldest daughter.
The images of eight infants was staggering enough when they were born. The reality of eight two year olds is wonderfully captured in this bit of film from the "Today" show.
The images of eight infants was staggering enough when they were born. The reality of eight two year olds is wonderfully captured in this bit of film from the "Today" show.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
