China’s gender imbalance

MORE than 24 million Chinese men of marrying age could find themselves without spouses in 2020, state media reported, citing a study that blamed sex-specific abortions as a major factor.

The study, by the government-backed Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, named the gender imbalance among newborns as the most serious demographic problem for the country’s population of 1.3 billion, the Global Times said.

The study said the key contributing factors to the phenomenon included the nation’s family-planning policy, which restricts the number of children citizens may have, as well as an insufficient social security system.