China still faces a tough challenge to redress a long-term skewed sex ratio of births on the mainland, which now stands at about He made the remark at an awareness-raising event on gender equality and women's empowerment, held on Friday by the National Health and Family Planning Commission. A girl attends a Tibetan language lesson at a primary school in Chamdo county, the Tibet autonomous region, on July By , there will be 30 million more Chinese males aged 20 to 45 than females of the same age, which will prompt a marriage squeeze, expert estimates show.
A marriage squeeze refers to a demographic imbalance in which the number of potential brides does not approximately equal the number of potential grooms. The imbalance in China's sex ratio at birth has been gradually curbed largely due to government-led administrative measures and the difference has continued to decline on the mainland during the past four years, statistics from the commission showed.
To eliminate that, "more social and economic policies favoring girls will be introduced to gradually change the social norm where males are more preferred as they carry the family name and later support the parents," he said. A comprehensive approach is needed to redress the skewed ratio, Chen urged.
In China, sex-selective abortions are deemed the direct cause of the imbalance, according to Lu Jiehua, a sociology professor at Peking University.
In response, a nationwide campaign to crack down on non-medical fetus sex determinations and sex-selective abortions has been launched by the commission, which has passed relevant regulations, previous reports said.
