Summary: The Shortage Of Women

In 1979, two thirds of the population were under 30 years old, and the baby boomers of the 1950s and 1960s were starting to have children of their own. In the same year, to combat the rapidly growing population, the Chinese government imposed a policy in which couples were allowed to have only one child. This policy was enforced by forced abortions, sterilizations, and fines to families with two or more children. Confucian patriarchal tradition has been very influential to Chinese custom and has a bias against girls and women. This discrimination is based on how women were no longer responsible for their families once they married into that of their husbands. In modern China, most of this tradition has continued. Therefore, Chinese couples …show more content…
By 2020, there will be about 40 million Chinese men who will not be able to find brides, at least Chinese ones. In economic terms, the relative scarcity of women is giving them bargaining power. A bachelor in China may pay a woman’s family up more than ten thousand dollars for her hand in marriage. The man is also usually expected to provide an apartment for him and his bride to live in. Since it is very expensive to acquire a wife, couples actually desire daughters over sons because of less costs. Based on this trend, only men from wealthy families are likely to acquire wives. For poorer men, Women and adolescent girls have been lured or bought from their families, promised jobs, and then transported to far distances in villages to be sold as wives to poor …show more content…
Mothers are thus more able to pursue their own interests and opportunities in the workplace. Women in China are able to manage all aspects of their own lives and since they are able to work, they do not have to depend on their husbands for money. A survey questioning aspects of Chinese women’s social status was conducted in December 2000. Many outdated concepts were challenged. Women were to respond to the statement that a woman is not complete without a child. The survey shows only a quarter of participants agreed to this statement. Nearly 70 percent selected either the "not quite in favor" or the "quite unfavorable" categories for their responses. This result is interesting as for centuries it had been accepted in China that it was the basic responsibility and indeed natural duty of women to bear children. Another traditional concept raised was that men are in charge while women keep the house, which was supported by over half of those interviewed. This view was particularly evident in rural areas and men proved more likely than women to accept this stereotype. In the cities however, some 63 percent of women did not support this