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The among the easiest solutions to a surplus of men is encouraging their emigration and would have the benefits of reducing domestic population and the improved standard of living which often accompanies remittances by expatriates.

A more likely scenario than the more romantic notion of space colonization.

I think you'll see a rise in relationships between young men and older women :)

Are you suggesting the Chinese will import cougars?

They are killing the surplus men. China has one of the highest rates of male tobacco smokers in the world, but one of the lowest rates of female smokers.

Too slow to have any effect.

The average age of people diagnosed with lung cancer is 70 years old. 3% of all cases are found in people under the age of 45. (http://menshealth.about.com/od/cancer/a/lung_cancer.htm)

War could be a "convenient" way for China to both reduce the number of young men (they are either on foreign soil or bured beneath it) and increase China's access to foreign resources. And the men most likely to be foot soldiers would probably the less educated ones.

Well, if this[0] article is correct, the surplus of men is 32 million. They'd have to invade a whole lot of countries to suffer that many casualties.

0: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/11/world/asia/11china.html

If China wanted to murder a million young men, it would simply invade Taiwan.

Import women or kill the surplus men?! Could we please tone down the vitriol? Frankly, the barbarism your "solutions" presupposes is quite offensive.

Then do you have any alternate solutions? I highly doubt that all those men will be satisfied with sexbots, no matter how realistic the Japanese will have made them by then.

My presuppositions were purely based on the Chinese government's history of human rights violations. Given that the government is dominated by engineers, it's actually not that surprising that they focus on the ends rather than the means. I did not intend to inject any vitriol; I was simply giving some probable solutions based on an objective assessment of the situation.

No need for domestic human rights violations to trim an excess of zealous males; just launch infantry-heavy wars.

Well, that would once again fall foul of their non-intereference foreign policy. If they're going to start interfering with other countries, it'd be cheaper/easier to just import the women. And the government could keep its hands clean a lot easier than with the war option.

Mass homosexuality would be another imaginable possibility...

They could promote polyandry.

Did you just claim that engineers are usually irresponsible by saying that "engineers [tend to focus on] the ends rather than the means"?

>I highly doubt that all those men will be satisfied with sexbots, no matter how realistic the Japanese will have made them by then.

It doesn't matter if they're satisfied or not, so long as they don't become criminal or violent. Porn and video games seem to be pretty good at distracting sexless men from more destructive pursuits, let alone sexbots.

Don't get me wrong, the gender imbalance is going to make life pretty awful for Chinese men, but I think the vast majority of those men will suffer quietly. The effect on the culture is going to be more subtle than what some people are envisioning.

> It doesn't matter if they're satisfied or not, so long as they don't become criminal or violent. Porn and video games seem to be pretty good at distracting sexless men from more destructive pursuits, let alone sexbots.

My point was that not restorting to violence depends upon their being satsified. Porn and video games work for a very small percentage of the population that is anti-social anyway. The desire to find a mate and reproduce is at the core of human psychology. For most men, a porn, video games, or even a sexbot won't be enough.

> I think the vast majority of those men will suffer quietly. The effect on the culture is going to be more subtle than what some people are envisioning.

Like it says here[0], the number of surplus men will be 32 million. So what if 90% of the men stay quiet? 3 million pissed off men is enough to make all hell break loose.

0: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/11/world/asia/11china.html

Well for one thing, you shouldn't look at it as an issue of "32 million surplus men." The hurt is going to be distributed more broadly throughout the entire male population. It's not like things like serial monogamy don't exist in China. What will happen is that relationships will simply be fewer and more far between for the average man than the average woman.

Interestingly, this is actually already the case in Western countries; in the US, there are roughly 55 single men for every 45 single women[0]. This is, of course, due to the younger average marital age of women than men.

Naturally, there's a lot more slack in the system as regards non-marital relationships than marital relationships; in the latter case the gender imbalance will indeed be a fundamental difference between China and other countries. But by the time the dating market shifts conclusively towards marriage, a lot of men will have aged out of the key crime demographic (ie, males aged 15-30, who commit such a hugely disproportionate number of crimes that overall crime rates are mostly a reflection of trends within this group).

I do expect that there will be a little more crime, as well as all kinds of other unpleasant effects that we can't even predict, but it won't be in anything resembling a linear fashion, and a lot will depend on other factors.

>Porn and video games work for a very small percentage of the population that is anti-social anyway.

What do you mean "work?" I'm not saying they can substitute for a real relationship. The relevant comparison isn't porn and video games vs. a living, breathing woman, it's porn and video games vs. jail time. And even if their existence doesn't make crime any less attractive, I think they'll still have an enervating effect that will make at-risk men less of a danger to others.

0: http://www.halfsigma.com/2008/04/unmarried-mal-1.html (look at the bottom row in the table)

Then do you have any alternate solutions? I highly doubt that all those men will be satisfied with sexbots, no matter how realistic the Japanese will have made them by then.

Polyandry seems like an idea that has potential. I'll leave the implementation details to the experts though.

I don't think parent is advocating anything, just talking about the dangers involved in the situation. And it is a dangerous situation.

A large group of young men unable to find a mate is a large group of unhappy humans of the type which are traditionally most likely to resort to violence. I'm against this violence, sure. But when a society creates a situation like this and it is really stirring up some possibilities that we have to be aware of - to be able to prevent the violence.

This concept that men will wreck havoc upon society simply because they cannot find a "mate" genuinely surprises me. What's this based on? Historical anecdotes of which I'm simply not aware of? There are LOTS of single men in Western countries who don't have a partner and most finds ways to deal with it without resorting to violence (work, friends, hobbies, pets). Not sure why the Chinese are supposed to function otherwise.

Because in the West it's individual, not systemic. Hypothetical singleton knows if he wanted to, he could find someone, he's just not interested right now.

Incidentally, there is a good example of a country where there are surplus males, due to healthcare priorities, and some men have 4 wives, further exacerbating the imbalance, and a culture that frowns on both casual sex and homosexuality. Perhaps you've heard of it? Afghanistan.

I wouldn't be surprised if they easily solved problem #2 by paying poor people to have more kids

They wouldn't have to pay them, all they have to do is take away the one-child policy.

Not really. The bulk of China's decline in birth rates can be ascribed to the same demographic cycle that all developed countries go through rather than to the one child policy. In fact the policy itself only affects a certain percentage of Chinese families in the first place.

Also, paying people to have kids hasn't done much when other countries have tried it, and I doubt China's luck will be any better.