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                 China's Emerging Migration Issue: Wife Hunting

   by Jim Stevenson

   The migration of people from one area to another has historically been
   related to some aspect of survival. In China, however, experts are
   looking at a phenomenon often overlooked as a cause for mass migration
   - men looking for a mate.

   Chinese culture has always favored sons.  But combining that preference
   with a one-child policy that has sought to control population growth
   and an advancement in technology that boosted safe abortions, China
   today has a population that is greatly skewed towards males.

   The Population Reference Bureau based in Washington estimates China now
   has 41 million bachelors who will not have women to marry.  That number
   is growing by some estimates to 55 million in less than 10 years.  Many
   men in China are now moving, mostly from rural to urban areas, to look
   for a wife.

   "Migrations of male migrant workers over time has been throughout
   history has been in part because of gender imbalances," said Mara
   Hvistendahl,an award-winning writer and journalist who has spent half
   of the past decade in China.  Her book, Unnatural Selection, examines
   China's sex imbalance and the resulting migration and social problems
   of eligible males.

   "We see a lot more migration within China these days.  Migrant
   communities are largely male.  There is a lot of concern about rising
   prostitution rates, STDs (sexually transmitted disease)," she said.

   "There is a syphilis epidemic in China now.  There are scholars who
   connected the rise in HIV and AIDS to this kind of more mobile, single
   male population."

   Normal birth ratios are 105 males for every 100 females.  But in China,
   it is now about 120 to 100. Mara Hvistendahl says China has some
   history dealing with migration and sex imbalance.

   "China had, not on a scale of what we are seeing today, but there was
   an imbalanced sex ratio in the 19th century for a few decades.  And one
   of the products of that was Chinese workers going to the United States,
   areas like California to lay their railroads.  So there was a mass
   migration at that time."

   Hvistendahl added, "Whether these men find wives is another issue."

   The issue has resurfaced, and she said in much larger numbers.

   "The desire to get married is still very strong in some a lot of these
   cultures.  Societies can certainly adapt in some way.  Ultimately I
   think it would be very difficult to adapt to the tune of 15 percent of
   men remaining unmarried in a place where marriage was almost universal
   and where there is a big social premium on getting married," she said.

   "There is a lot of family pressure.  Especially with the one-child
   policy, the grandparents feel like the family line is resting on this
   generation.  There will be many people in that generation who will not
   be able to carry on that line."
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   [1]http://www.voanews.com/content/china-new-migration-issue-wife-huntin
   g/1568816.html

References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/china-new-migration-issue-wife-hunting/1568816.html