Beijing — China faces a "major threat" from a growing gender imbalance that could leave millions of men without wives, the state news media reported Monday, highlighting concern about the impact of a one-child birth policy that has led to rampant female infanticide.
China has about 117 boys for every 100 girls, with nearly 13 million more boys than girls under the age of nine, the official Xinhua news agency said.
If that trend continues, by 2020 China could have as many as 40 million men who cannot find a spouse, Xinhua quoted an official of a key government advisory body as saying.
"Such serious gender disproportion poses a major threat to the healthy, harmonious and sustainable growth of the nation's population and would trigger such crimes and social problems as mercenary marriage, abduction of women and prostitution," said Li Weixiong, deputy chairman of the family planning committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.
Zhang Weiqing, minister in charge of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, called for unspecified "resolute measures" to curb the growing imbalance, Xinhua said.
Limited to one child, many couples abort or kill baby girls in hopes of trying again to have a boy, valued by Chinese culture as a way to carry on the family name and to look after parents in their old age.
The report Monday did not mention abortion or infanticide, but other reports by the state media occasionally discuss those issues and appeal to Chinese parents to value baby girls.
China has limited most couples to one child since the 1980s in order to curb the growth of its population — currently 1.3 billion people — and ease pressure on farmland and other resources.
Some areas have eased restrictions by allowing second children to divorced people who remarry and some other couples. But authorities say they have no plans to scrap the single-birth rule for most people.
The government has banned the use of ultrasound examinations to learn the sex of a fetus and tries to discourage couples from killing baby girls by publicizing penalties imposed on those caught doing it.
Officials say the one-child-per-couple rule has resulted in 300 million fewer births over the past decade.
Nevertheless, the population is expected to soar to nearly 1.6 billion by 2043, Xinhua said. The government has announced that estimate in the past, and the Xinhua report said population growth was expected to fall to nearly zero after reaching that point.
Meanwhile, the rapid aging of Chinese society brought on by the smaller size of younger generations will impose a severe burden on retirement and social welfare programs that the government is still trying to create, Mr. Zhang said.
By the mid-21st century, 25 per cent of the population will be aged 65 and over, he said.
"The aging problem is much more severe in the country's rural areas than in urban areas, which challenges the establishment of a health insurance system and social security system for the elderly," he said.
