A preference for boys and the availability of ultrasounds for baby sex recognition in China and India is leading to an increasingly serious gender imbalance in these countries, which may bring about a series of other social concerns in the long term.

A recent analysis in Canadian Medical Association Journal warns that the male to female ratio in a majority of areas in China and India is likely to exceed the normal 105:100 male to female sex ratio at birth (SRB) by 10 percent to 20 percent in the next 20 years. The analysis pointed out that with the introduction of sonogram technology, the SRB grew to 130:100 in some Chinese provinces in 1992. Data also show a high 125:100 gender disparity in North Indian regions like Punjab, Delhi and Gujarat.

While China’s one-child policy is widely criticized by international community for violating human rights and motivating women to have abortions to spare opportunities for having boys, India, the country without such a policy, does not seem to do a good job of stopping women from going to sex-selective abortions. The pattern analysis shows that in both China and India people tend to make sure their second or third baby is a boy if their first or second is a girl.

There are concerns over possible social consequences due to the gender imbalance, such as the excess men having difficulty getting married. Experts worry that those who fail to find wives may become psychologically vulnerable, leading to increasing violence and crime.

The imbalance will even have an impact on China and India’s economic growth pattern, according to economists. Some point out that as parents feel obligated to earn more social status for their sons, the families with sons tend to have a higher saving rate. The preference for boys may have even influenced families’ consumption patterns and facilitated a boom in some industries such as the property market in China. Many families with boys feel it is highly necessary to buy a house, even though housing prices in many areas have marched far above reasonable or affordable levels.

Policy-makers in China and India are making attempts to reduce the imbalance, such as forbidding fetal sex determination. However, people still have a number of ways to find out their baby’s gender before birth. The most essential and helpful method would be strengthening education and reducing the preference for boys that is deep in the culture.

Although changes in attitudes towards gender have been taking place in the past 10 years, the high SRB imbalance in the 1990s will still lead to at least a two-decade long overall gender imbalance in China and India. The analysis predicts that people in the two countries will have to wait for several decades to see a normal gender ratio again.