Preference for Male Children

When being born into this world, before even developing an identity, you are already assigned to a category: gender. As determines it your life path, it is definitely a significant distinction, and in some cases even more significant for your parents. Imagine a new parent’s frustrations at the realization that their child is of the “wrong” sex – which usually denotes a female. This however is no modern invention, and dates back throughout history starting with ancient Rome and Greek times. Many sources provide evidence for the preference for male children in every society in almost every time period. There are indications that this preference is decreasing however, as women were allowed to work in jobs deemed “only suitable for men” and earned the right to vote, making them appear less weaker. From the period 1970 to 2007, men experienced a salary of 6%, whereas in the exact same time-span of 37 years, woman experienced a 44% increase, illustrating the previous disadvantage and how an equilibrium is trying to be reached. Now the divide between what people think woman and men are capable of is smaller, but regardless this theme still holds true in certain countries today. These being namely India, China, Pakistan and the Caucasus (border of Europe and Asia.) The natural balance of the population should be roughly 50:50 but this has changed particularly in Asia, due to wider availability of affordable ultrasound equipment. Ultrasound is able to detect the child’s sex in 15 weeks of pregnancy. I’m sure many of you have heard of The PRC’s “One Child Policy.” This policy began in 1979 and stated that “urban couples were allowed to only have one child (except in the case of multiple births, or parents who are both only children themselves, or foreigners.) Hong Kong and Macau were exempt from this population control policy. Resulting from this, the ratio between the sexes was unnaturally, with 120 per 100 girls (even reached 150:100 in one province). In India, 109 boys are born for every 100 girls. Demographers calculate that roughly 160 million Asian females have gone what they euphemistically categorize as "missing." There's growing evidence that this pattern of sex selection is being followed in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, and similar trends seem likely in Africa and the Middle East.

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/347767?uid=3739368&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21101898834727 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy http://www.fastcompany.com/1793530/case-girls
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex-selective_infanticide