How China's one-child policy has backfired on men

Why do people believe that women have the upper hand now?

They might have in the slight time frame between high school graduation and marriage (~25 years for Chinese women). Before they have not much say because their fathers are the boss. Afterwards they have husbands who don't do anything but work and sleep (and maybe care for their mistresses). It's true that in that short slice of time their power over each single men who wants them is nearly unlimited. But would you trade your whole life for 5 years of power over guys you don't care about?

And it's not really true that they have power in a global sense, it's only in each of these 1-on-1 encounters with potential marriage partners. On the global scale requirements like beauty and social standards are higher and the push to marriage is also stronger than for men.

So this "has backfired on men" should be read as "has decreased the huge advantage of men to become only a big advantage for men".

Some officials are already acknowledging that one child has gone on too long, and most couples are allowed to have two now (most minorities have always been allowed more, most country-side dwellers are allowed two if the first is a boy). But many couples aren't taking advantage of the new two child policy, since raising a kid in a Chinese city is expensive (especially schooling, which isn't really free).

Korea went through the same cycle: too many kids in the 70s, got everyone cut back, and then they went over a demographic cliff and now have to beg couples to have more kids today.

Really great read; sheds light on some things I never understood about china, but now it makes sense.

Goverment: "Stop making so many babies! that's it, just one per couple."

Citizens: "well, if we can only have one, we better make sure it's a boy!"

What could go wrong?

Yes, woman are gaining some upper hand here; and thats good. But it's not because of a change of outlooks or perspectives of the people, it's simply out of scarcity of the gender.

And what happens when there aren't enough women to go around? why, they import them of course! And by import I mean sex slavery and arranged marriages.

"life...finds a way..." to keep on fuckin'

They can look at as many corollary data plots as they like, but the simple explanation is that modern society has made men dispensable. A traditional "patriarchal" marriage is based on the woman's need of a man to provide for her and keep her safe, while the man's attachment to a woman is primarily one of desire. Now that modern society has made it possible for a woman to live well without a man, she is free to base her romantic relations on desire as well. Obviously these things take decades to play out, so we still see the primary desires of woman lean toward the financial capabilities of the male. But this will slowly change. For better or worse, family structures of the future will look nothing like those of the past. Single mothers will top 50% in China, just as it has in the USA, within two generations.

Ahh.. the unintended consequences of central planning.

1.16 boys per girl? Down from 1.22? Wow. I knew there was an imbalance. I didn't realize it was quite so large.

It's really depressing that such an anachronistic notion (of carrying on your family's "name") is still so prevalent that it results in tens of millions of abortions of unwanted girls.

My only hope is that 20 or 30 years from now when the children of this generation of Chinese are themselves looking to marry and have families that such misogyny has fallen by the wayside.

Where USA stacks up to Materinity Leave compared to other countries.

1. Sweden offers the most generous maternity leave policy, with 56 weeks paid at 80 percent of citizens' salary, and 13 additional weeks paid at a fixed rate thereafter.

2. In some central European countries, the standard maternity leave is three years.

3. Adoptive parents and same-sex parents get parental leave in the U.K., Canada, France, and yes, Sweden.

4. There is still zero mandated maternity leave benefits in the U.S., although companies with over 50 employees are obligated to offer three months of unpaid time off under the Family and Medical Leave Act.

5. This makes the U.S. one of only four countries in the world with no required paid maternity leave. The others are Liberia, Swaziland, and Papua New Guinea.

http://www.payscale.com/career-news/2013/05/these-9-countrie...

Japan is so screwed! By 2060 there population will be 50% of what it was and only 32 million people will be under 65 years old!

After peaking seven years ago, at 128 million, Japan's population has been falling — and is on a path to decline by about a million people a year. By 2060, the government estimates, there will be just 87 million people in Japan; nearly half of them will be over 65. Without a dramatic change in either the birthrate or its restrictive immigration policies, Japan simply won't have enough workers to support its retirees, and will enter a demographic death spiral. Yet the babies aren't coming.

http://theweek.com/articles/453219/everything-need-know-abou...

One logical conclusion is that policy makers may decide that in order to cull the male population, war is needed.

the real issues:

1. more man than woman, about 50Million man will probably never have a wife. Really, either legalize prostitution, or somehow have a war, otherwise you will read more news about rape.

2. the world is flat, woman are better educated and they do not want to marry a man that is inferior, they would rather stay unmarried if no good fit can be found, that further worsen the situation. low-class men are the real losers, in a large amount.

3. people do get married do not want to have more than one baby due to various reasons listed by others here.

I'm curious how this seeming gender war will resolve. One way is that homosexual and asexual behavior will be accepted. Another is that men will decide to not prioritize marital relations. Finally, both genders could accept each other as equals and partners.

For the first, the supply of men will decrease. It might decrease enough to cause a more traditional relationship between the genders. The surviving heterosexual group will have more power since the demand is probably constant.

The second, is probably more how many picture the 1960s and 1970s in the US. Men getting the milk for free. In many ways if all you want is milk, so to speak, you get off quite well in the process. It is a selfish take on life, but oh well we'll all just matter anyway.

Third, this is the sanest approach. It allows the species to succeed. It also seems to make the major genetic predisposition of the species.

Only time will tell.

I wonder if the irony has been lost on the young men in Silicon Valley reading this article and teasing central planning before they go back to the grind so that someday they too can impress the Bay Area's few women who still don't resent tech wealth from the view of their Lamborghini.

This probably means there is a market for pickup artists who speak Chinese.

The article's description of women's power over men is reminiscent of Robert A. Heinlein's sci-fi novel The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, in which Luna had many more single men than single women, with similar results.

Is there any land in this world where the situation is reversed?

Sounds like Silicon Valley' similar gender imbalance.

A lot of this is the result of historical policies and culture. It doesn't necessarily excuse poor behavior, but there's enough of that to go around on all sides that we eventually learn not to point fingers.

It is culturally expected of the man to take care of his parents and grandparents. It's a very gendered role, so a daughter might not accept that responsibility. Typically the son's loyalty is expected to go to his own parents, while the daughters loyalty would transfer to her husband's family. But sometimes when she got married her husband would accept responsibility for her parents as well. But that places a significant burden on the man. It wasn't that big of a deal with multiple children - you could split up the parents and grandparents. But with one child, you now have to hope that one can take care of six adults and a spouse. It's described as the 4-2-1 problem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy#.22Four-two-o...).

There was an article on modern Chinese women not wanting to support their parents that I encountered a while back (though I think it was older), but I'm having problems finding it. This might change, though, as new legislation surfaced recently making it a legal burden for all children (http://learningenglish.voanews.com/content/chinese-laws-requ...). This should help alleviate a lot of retirement care concerns.

Some rural areas have policies where new children are greeted with extra land. This was returned to the government upon marriage for girls, while it stayed with the family for boys. Ostensibly this was to prevent the land from going to some city dweller. It's a policy littered with faulty assumptions, but that extra acre of land could be pretty tempting to a rural villager. (http://research-china.blogspot.com/2005/10/why-girls-are-aba...). Outdated ownership and inheritance policies are another cause for concern.

With the relaxing of the one-child policy, things got a lot better. (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/01/07/as-china-s-...) Note that some parents are aborting boys for girls, now. But we can see that a lot (but not all) of the parents concern over the gender of their child can come from government policies and wanting a place to live in their declining years. Let's not try to force our own paradigms and logic on other cultures just because it's convenient. I'm not Chinese, but I still get frustrated when people judge their worth without considering Chinese values and cultural expectations. It's a lot more complex than an entire country hating women. Selfishness is a much more reasonable assumption. Assuming it's selfish to want your kids to take care of you when you took care of your parents and grandparents. I'd say it's more like perpetuating the cultural machine.

We've also completely ignored the historical relevance of China's bride price (http://qz.com/92267/in-a-reversal-of-the-dowry-chinese-men-p... and http://www.npr.org/2013/04/23/176326713/for-chinese-women-ma...). Surely the fact that it's been culturally expected to pay your wife's parents to be eligible for marriage has influence somewhere. Notably, a son (and thus continuing financial support) was still considered more desirable than a one-time payment. A daughter might make you rich, but a son would make sure you always had a place to live. Because if he didn't, society would make life very difficult for him.

Perhaps this would all be a bit better if parents weren't planning their children's lives (from their careers and educations down to their sex) based on their own wants and needs. But being old doesn't really make you wise.

Ah, another anti-China propaganda piece based on American misconceptions about Chinese policy.

Overall, this would appear to be a good thing.

For anyone who made a lot of money on Bitcoin during the runup (which was largely powered by Chinese buying and the Chinese "saving" mentality mentioned in this article)... you have the Chinese one-child policy to thank for your Teslas