I wouldn't be surprised if China started to become more aggressive militarily as this generation enters the proper age. An imbalance of men that don't have mates has caused problems for societies in the past, and they solved those problems by putting all of this pent up aggression to use.
My step-mother was Chinese, and came from a very large family, with very strong family values. That was usual. They also ran a very successful business. Also usual. Fukuyama's "Trust: The Social Virtues and The Creation of Prosperity" confirmed that large Chinese families work well as the basis of a business (but larger scales can be problematic).
It was only when a 24yo postgrad from China moved into my sharehouse that the changes to China hit home to me: due to the one-child policy, she was an only child, and she was the focus of her parents, and all her grandparents. Although a sweet girl, she was also startlingly childish and selfish. That's just one anecdote. But only children do have a tendency to be spoiled (I was an only child myself, and I was certainly spoiled).
These two experiences illustrated for me the fundamental change that is transforming China - from family to individual. I think this consequence of the one-child policy is far more significant than the gender imbalance. What will it mean?
(I apologize if I've offended anyone with this sensitive topic; it's not my intention. I'm connecting some of my own meaningful experiences with large scale changes, and I welcome refutation/refinement.)
It's not a binary issue, and you can't just say A > B = problems.
There are ~1.3 billion Chinese, but let's assume the this issue covers 1/3 of the population. So it's (1300/3 + 32/2) vs (1300/3 - 32/2) which works out to 4350:4318. Now we might guess that there will be large numbers of men that don't ever have a relationship. But, what people forget is relationships don't always last. People die, or get divorced ect. So what ends up happening is women will spend a higher percentage of their life in a relationship and while some men will never marry this is "normal" and they can still have relationship with women throughout their lives.
If anything expect women to marry younger and female widows to be in higher demand than males widows. Granted, if the male to female ratio ever reached 2:1 there would be issues but this is still a minor imbalance.
This mathematical illiteracy is a pet peeve of mine. It's unfashionable to talk in a meaningful mathematical unit (percentage). We see this crap in global warming propaganda (tons of carbon dioxide emitted or kept from being emitted) with no mention of what this is as a percentage. You see it in vaccination schedule defense. (1000 kids died of this disease in the last 5 years because they weren't vaccinated). You see it a lot with state and government budget issues. (This program brought in $1.2 million to the economy of state of California, and now they're cutting it). None of this sounds nearly as sexy if put into the perspective of percentage, but of course, then you couldn't stir up the sheep.
This imbalance is very common around the world. I don't understand why the press gets so anxious about it re: China. India has a similar surplus, like 20 million extra boys in the 0-14 range.
In places like South America there is often an imbalance favoring males before age 15 which shifts over to females from age 20 onwards. It doesn't mean war or revolution -- just a lot of urban violence and early deaths of males as they compete for mates. It's not pretty but neither is it a dire international problem.
Yes. Vietnam needs to start working on an H-Bomb now. I mean that. The ironic aspect of it, of course, is that in modern economies, women are much more valuable to the old folks than men.
Yeah, I don't know, but I'm being serious. Vietnam and China are ancient enemies, and Vietnam is the likeliest source of stolen brides. A few h-bombs, pursued for the exact same defensive reason that France and the UK had, could prevent demographic dislocations, between wildly disparate world powers.
