Shortage of Girls

By Ramesh Akkineni

Jim Rogers says this about shortage of girls in Korea and the possible effects

Over and over at temples and monuments we saw bus-loads of children gathered for their class pictures—and each class’s shortage of girls leapt out at us. Usually a class of ten-year-olds appeared to be about two-thirds boys and one-third girls.

After a week or so of spying so few girls, we cast about for why. The reasons were startling. We knew, of course, that China’s one-child policy had caused a shortage of Chinese girls, principally because in rural China some girl babies are left outside to die or are drowned, but Korea has no one-child policy. However, it has the sonogram. Most couples in Korea, like prosperous couples everywhere know that the state instead of grown children takes care of the elderly, so opt for two children, a boy and a girl. As boys are more desirable than girls, if the first-born is a boy, well and good. The problem arises when the first-born is a girl and the sonogram informs the couple that the second is to be a girl, too. This second may be aborted, and if the third fetus is also not a boy, she is in as much danger as was her aborted sister. If the first and second children are boys, the couples are satisfied and stop reproducing.

This demographic shortfall is true all over Asia, in Japan, Taiwan, and other countries, the first time these civilizations have faced this particular problem. In Korea in 1993 there were 115.6 boys born for each 100 girl babies. (The normal ratio is about 105 males to 100 females.) In 1995 only 47.9% of primary school children were female, which meant an extra 200,000 6-to-11-year-old boys. Local sources estimate that by 2010 there will be 128 men to every 100 women in the 27-to-30 year cohort.

This presents a serious demographic problem. Oddly enough, a similar situation occurred in Europe just before the year 1000, when for similar reasons girl babies were killed. As a result, back then it wasn’t the bride’s father who paid a dowry, but the husband who paid the bride’s father to obtain his new wife. Asia today has some 3-billion people, which makes this a huge trans-national problem. The Asian shortage of females will mean an imbalance worldwide—worse in some areas, perhaps, but important to all of us.

Anyone interested in politics, economics, and investing in Asia needs to take such a change seriously and think through the consequences. As an investor, I like not only to buy cheaply, but also to buy when a fundamental change is about to occur, giving my investment a double whammy. This demographic shift seems to me to be one of the largest cultural events that will hit Asian society—and an opportunity.

Some obvious effects? The legendary mistreatment of women in Asia---and Korean men have reputedly been the worst offenders---is about to change as the value of women skyrockets. Certainly, wives will be in demand. These brides will not only command dowries but also more money with which to establish their households. This should mean more sales of ovens and dishwashers, more interior-decorating and furniture stores, indeed more sales of everything a young woman might desire to set up her household. Just now Korea has no day-care centers; these new wives may well want help raising their children, and since they’ll have their pick of husbands, doubtless they’ll pick those whose prospects promise the best possible life, including abundant child care.

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