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The current issue of PT features a gripping excerpt (here's a teaser) of Mara Hvistendahl's important and compelling new book, Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men.
Hvistendahl, a tenacious-yet-sensitive reporter and fluent Mandarin speaker, spoke with PT about the gender imbalance and its implications:
PT: When we hear about gender imbalance, most of us think only of China and the one-child policy. Tell us how widespread the problem really is.
Gender imbalance now stretches across much of Asia and into Eastern Europe. Far fewer girls than boys are born today in India, Taiwan, Vietnam, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, and Albania. Sex selection was also widespread in South Korea throughout the 1980s and 1990s. All told, there are over 160 million females missing from Asia's population--and untold more missing from Eastern Europe.
All of these countries share something in common with China: their birth rates have dropped dramatically over the past few decades. Either in response to government policy, as in China, or simply because parents are deciding on their own to limit family size, women are having fewer kids-- and when a woman only has one or two children there is more pressure on her to make sure one of them is a boy.
PT: You did extensive reporting, in ten different countries. Broadly speaking, how did your final conclusions differ from your original ideas or thesis?
When I started my reporting, I imagined I'd write a book about how gender discrimination has persisted as Asia and Eastern Europe develop. In the end my book became much more of a story about population control, abortion, and technology. I wove the stories that parents, doctors, and activists told me into a technological history tracing the development of ultrasound and amniocentesis and some of the ethical issues they have created.
PT: Before reading your book, I believed the primary explanation for a preference for boys in developing countries was economic--that boys grow up and work for a family, while girls leave the family for marriage. That's only part of the story, right?
Right. Parents do talk about economic reasons, particularly in India, where the payment of dowry can make daughters expensive. But sex selection actually catches on first among the wealthy and upper classes, and I think--as do many activists in Asia--that for those families economic reasons make for a pretty poor excuse.
Pressures from falling birth rates play a significant role as well, as do high overall abortion rates in some countries. That's a part of the story that isn't so talked about: abortion was legalized in much of Asia as a population control method, not a woman's right, and in some cases it was legalized in the absence of contraception. In several countries where sex selection now occurs women have historically been encouraged or even forced to have abortions.
PT: I was fascinated to read of the preference for boys among upper-class Indians, for example. How do you account for that?
Birth rates tend to fall first among the wealthy, and that's part of the reason sex ratios spike first in cities like Delhi. Another factor is that elites are the first to have access to technologies like ultrasound. In that sense ultrasound is like any other new technology--like iPhones or other gadgets. The worrying thing is that sex selection can later trickle down to other classes, and spread to new regions in the process.
PT: What do you think is the biggest psychological effect of the gender imbalance on women, and on men?
For those women who are trafficked or sold by their parents into marriages or prostitution because of a demand for females, the effects are immense. I interviewed a few bought brides, and they arrive in their new destination mostly unable to speak their husbands' language, dependent on the men for immigration status, and beholden to their in-laws. That's a huge burden, and in South Korea and Taiwan shelters have been set up to house women who find themselves in abusive relationships.
For straight men hoping to find a wife or a partner, the gender imbalance is difficult as well. It's mainly wealthier men can afford to attract or buy a wife now that women have become more scarce, and as a result many poor men in rural areas are left lonely. British and Chinese researchers are now studying depression rates among such men in China. The results of that research are still forthcoming, but I think it's safe to say that growing up without much prospect of finding a wife or partner is intensely difficult.
PT: The West turns out to play a key role in your book. How did Western policies and technology help spur on the current girl shortage?
The West, and particularly the United States, played a role in bankrolling stringent population control programs across Asia back in the 1960s and 1970s. At that time spiraling population growth was a major concern, particularly in countries like China and India. There were real reasons to be worried, but all sorts of unfortunate strategies were proposed to reduce birth rates abroad.
In addition to pressuring countries to liberalize their abortion laws, people within the American population control movement advocated pushing along research into sex determination as a population control method. Studies had shown that around the world couples kept having children until they got a son. The idea emerged: why not guarantee them a son right off the bat?
PT: Speaking of the West, many readers will be shocked to hear about a burgeoning sex selection industry here in the US--with a bias toward girls. How widespread is this, and why do Americans prefer baby girls while most of the rest of the world would seemingly rather have boys?
Americans tend not to select for sex using abortion, but an increasing number go through in-vitro fertilization just to have a child of a certain sex. The procedure available during IVF is called preimplantation genetic diagnosis, or PGD, and the whole ordeal costs close to $20,000. Still, there are couples who are so determined to have a girl or a boy--fertile couples with no other reason to go through IVF--that they do it.
Fertility clinics aren't required to report sex ratios of babies born through PGD to the Centers for Disease Control, so there is no hard data on how many girls or boys are being born. But the clinic directors I spoke with told me Americans tend to prefer girls. Parents give a number of reasons for wanting daughters -- it may be they want to dress a girl in pink, or it may be they believe a girl will be better behaved and do better in school. But I don't actually think there is much difference between Americans who select for daughters and Asians who select for sons. In both cases parents are bringing children into the world with very high expectations of how they will act. And of course children often surprise us.
PT: What are some of the best solutions or corrections for the gender imbalance you came across?
Unfortunately this is an area that needs a lot more work. It is illegal for ultrasound providers to determine sex in both China and India, and I interviewed activists in Asia who stressed that the starting place should be governments simply enforcing these bans. India has made strides toward that since the latest census results were released this spring. (The results showed a worsening child sex ratio.)
Bangalore University also recently announced that starting this fall some of its programs will give affirmative action and full scholarships to single daughters, since it can be assumed their parents did not select for sex. That kind of incentive seems to me far more likely to work than paying parents a small amount for having a girl -- a strategy tried across Asia -- since it targets wealthy and educated parents as well as poor ones.
PT: How did writing this book change your view on the abortion debate?
My view on whether abortion should be legal didn't change. I have always believed it should be a woman's right to decide whether she wants to be a mother. But I now think the term "pro-choice" isn't the best way to describe that stance. There are simply too many choices available to parents these days. And the rise of technologies like PGD, along with advances in genetic research, mean we're going to have to start thinking hard about whether we want to allow parents to select for a whole range of traits and conditions. Sex is just the beginning.
PT: The book has sparked some interesting online debates. Which reaction has surprised you the most, and why?
Anti-abortion activists have been using my book to argue for outlawing abortion. That didn't surprise me in the least; they've been seizing upon the issue of sex selective abortion for years. I was more surprised by those who objected to my criticizing Western involvement in promoting sex selection and population control in Asia. Some of these critiques were based on misinformation -- a number of pundits had not actually read the book. But beyond that I was struck by how deep resistance to the idea of a Western role in this particular problem ran.
Friendfluence will be released on Jan. 15!
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