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Attitudes to and practices regarding sex selection in China
Author(s) -
Cecilia Laiwan Chan,
Eric Blyth,
Celia Hoiyan Chan
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
prenatal diagnosis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.956
H-Index - 97
eISSN - 1097-0223
pISSN - 0197-3851
DOI - 10.1002/pd.1477
Subject(s) - sex selection , china , preference , government (linguistics) , context (archaeology) , face (sociological concept) , one child policy , family planning policy , social value orientations , value (mathematics) , politics , selection (genetic algorithm) , sociology , family planning , economic growth , political science , demography , history , law , economics , social science , population , microeconomics , linguistics , philosophy , archaeology , machine learning , artificial intelligence , computer science , research methodology
This paper explores the problem of China's ‘missing’ girls—estimated to run into many millions. It considers the impact of the underpinning Confucian value system in China that has produced a culture of son preference and which, together with China's compulsory family planning program and ‘one child policy’, has effectively established a ‘one son policy’. Discussion of the various means by which the birth or survival of daughters have traditionally been prevented provides the context for identifying the contribution of new sex selection procedures to the maintenance of son preference in contemporary Chinese society. The paper concludes that China's son preference is not simply a personal problem for the millions of ‘missing girls’ who were destined to live a shorter life and for the surviving girls who continue to face considerable discrimination simply because they are of the ‘wrong’ sex; it heralds a social and demographic disaster of major proportions for which neither the government nor the people of China appear to have the will or the means to forestall. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.