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I keep finding articles stating that because of the One Child Policy, there is a big gender imbalance in China. They say it's bad enough that millions of men won't be able to find a wife.

Example: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/cnainsider/leftover-men-china-get-married-gender-imbalance-one-child-policy-10485358

The gender imbalance is severest in rural farmlands, where women are leaving to search for jobs and husbands in the cities – leading to the emergence of “bachelor villages” across China.

I even read that there is now human trafficking from Vietnam and North Korea to bring wives to some parts of rural China.

I think that the fact that there is actual gender imbalance in China or in India for instance is probably true. But does it really have such an effect on people? Are there really villages where people can't find a wife because everybody is already married? This sounds pretty extreme to me.

user60762
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    Why does that sound extreme? If a village has fewer women than men originally plus some fraction of the women leave the village, and if we assume A) there is no large discrepancy between the fraction of men who want to marry women and the fraction of women who want to marry men and B) monogamous pairings, then it is simple math to say there will be some men who cannot find a wife. – Bryan Krause Aug 28 '19 at 16:49
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    Consider also that many cultures have preference for male offspring. If they are only allowed one child, then they do their utmost to have only a boy. This includes abortion (prebirth) or murder (post birth) of female children. – JRE Aug 28 '19 at 17:13
  • The quote doesn't seem to have anything to do with the first statement about One Child Policy. Are you asking about localized gender imbalance because one gender moves away, or because the birth imbalance? – pipe Aug 28 '19 at 17:50
  • The notability example you give doesn't make any of the claims that you cite. It doesn't talk about millions of men. It talks about sex trafficking, but that doesn't seem to be your question. It mentions "bachelor villages" without defining what that means. It talks about gender ratios, but you say you accept those. It doesn't mention India. – Oddthinking Aug 29 '19 at 01:35
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    Even if there is a 1:1 gender balance, that doesn't mean every man will be married. In a population of 1.4 billion, there would likely be dozens of millions of unmarried men. – Oddthinking Aug 29 '19 at 01:40
  • @BryanKrause Yes it is simple math but will they be so desperate as to buy a wife from another country? Can't they move? Can't they go with divorced/widowed women instead? – user60762 Aug 29 '19 at 13:00
  • @pipe I did not include the quote, someone edited the question to add it. – user60762 Aug 29 '19 at 13:00
  • @Oddthinking sorry I may have selected my example too quickly. May I try asking a new one with more sources? I just don't understand why with a gender ratio of 1.05 most countries are fine, but then suddently with a ratio of 1.15 Chinese would resort to human trafficking to get a wife – user60762 Aug 29 '19 at 13:00
  • @user60762 Where should they move? – Bryan Krause Aug 29 '19 at 13:59
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    If the population of China is about 1.4 billion, and they were equally male and female, there would be about 700,000,000 males. If about 400,000,000 males are old enough to be married, 10 percent who aren't married yet but will be later would be 40,000,000 men. So I can believe there are tens of millions of unmarried Chinese men without blaming it on the gender imbalance. – M. A. Golding Aug 29 '19 at 16:56
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    @user60762: Let's edit this one and re-open. It isn't abandoned, just On Hold while we fix it up. I would be wary of your assumption that Human Trafficking only occurs in China or other countries with gender imbalances. – Oddthinking Aug 29 '19 at 23:15
  • `with a ratio of 1.15 Chinese would resort to human trafficking to get a wife` need citation here, [data shows](http://data.stats.gov.cn/easyquery.htm?cn=C01) the gender ratio has never been over 1.06 since 2015 in China. Also I cannot find any authoritative data suggests that a significant number of single Chinese males `resort to human trafficking to get a wife`. Noting that we are talking about 10M+ of single males, for which human trafficking doesn't seems to be remotely a viable "solution" by the large. – tweray Sep 03 '19 at 18:52

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