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Comment by kqr2 | Hacker News Reader

To me, it's an interesting unintended consequence of China's birth control policy.

Perhaps the government solved the overpopulation problem, but they also created an imbalance between men and women which may lead to social unrest.

Also, as China's population becomes older and retires, they will have a large imbalance in productive workforce.

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Birth control (and one of its consequences, older population) are unfortunately only one side of the coin. Interestingly, Mother Nature "regulates" the population in a way that in peaceful times 51 to 52 percent women are born but at the war time, more male babies are born.

http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2008-12/why-does-war-b...

I suppose, the same (proportion of ~ 51:49) would happen in China despite birth control. The real problem is "Female Infanticide", due to bias in many "patriarchal" societies towards women as being somewhat inferior to men.

I wonder what would be a good way to eliminate few million restless males ages 18-35? Let's just say it probably involves a land war with the west.

Hopefully our MTV will subvert their plans.

This should be obvious. Look what happens in a culture where the wealthy/powerful are allowed 4 wives, on top of there already being a shortage of females.

Look what happens in a culture where the wealthy/powerful are allowed 4 wives, on top of there already being a shortage of females.

What specifically does happen? In the culture I live in, there is aspirational lifelong monogamy as an ideal, and practical serial monogamy as a commonplace lifestyle, but I don't know what happens in a society with a highly skewed ratio of males to females. Especially, I don't know what happens if some men can have four wives and others none at all.

good point, I am always curious about how the Musilm solve the problem of male/female inbalance given the fact that one man can marry 4 wives.

In the late Ottoman Empire ~3% of men had more than one wife. Keep in mind that the wife's legal position was better than in most of Europe too. In cultures where the husband is expected to support wives and progeny it gets expensive fast. OTOH there are a lot of places poorer than e.g. Saudi Arabia. In places where the father is further along the continuum to useless sperm donor, like W. Africa promiscuity and the prevalence of multiple concurrent sexual selationships makes it very different.

"land war with the west"

How do you suppose they are going to get to the west? swim (to the East)? walk over mountains (to the West)? I have heard this "use the surplus males for war" theory several times. The "too many males part" adds up, but the rest does not.

Far more likely, is to use the 32 million man surplus for domestic infrastructure projects, which is what they are already doing.

It doesn't work like that tho'. The only reason men want steady jobs is to raise families. It's the genetically-programmed provider instinct. If that is being blocked then men will revert to aggressive competition. We're all mammals.

> The only reason men want steady jobs is to raise families.

You really think that.

It didn't occur to you that a man would want a steady job because: - he loves it?

- he enjoys the freedom that it provides to participate in hobbies

- he loves the time he spends with his coworkers

- each day brings something new and exciting? ...

I have a steady job and each of these things is one thing I love about it.

In a country with no form of social security, the only retirement "savings" for families is to have sons that can support them in their old age. Selectively aborting females (or female infanticide where selective abortion becomes difficult) becomes a "rational" decision in such cases. While I disagree with the logic on how they've approached this situation, I can see it happening in most post-feudal societies that are trying to industrialize.

This is going to seriously screw over China. You have the 4-2-1 problem: 4 grandparents living off of 2 parents who are living off of 1 child. It obviously will not work, China doesn't have the wealth to support the welfare and Chinese parents demand retirement and this sort of support from their children.

China collapses in the 2020's due to demographic pressure and inequality. Demographic trends are all but unavoidable.

But wouldn't a large (and growing) population of frustrated young men serve to change this demographic trend? Or do you see a vicious cycle here?

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