In the world's two largest countries — China and India — men outnumber women by 70 million, a circumstance that has never before occurred in human history, The Washington Post reported.
According to the Post, the gender imbalance has come about through a combination of cultural preferences, government decree, and modern medical technology.
And the consequences are far-reaching, the Post reported – from distorted labor markets, to higher savings rates, and lower consumption in China, to artificial inflation of certain property values — and spikes in violent crime, human trafficking, or prostitution.
The ramifications of too many men are only starting to come into sight, the Post reported.
"In the future, there will be millions of men who can't marry, and that could pose a very big risk to society," Li Shuzhuo, a leading demographer at Xi'an Jiaotong University, told the Post.
Out of China's population of 1.4 billion, there are nearly 34 million more males than females — the equivalent of almost the entire population of California, or Poland, who will never find wives and only rarely have sex.
China's official one-child policy, in effect from 1979 to 2015, was a big factor in creating this imbalance, as millions of couples were determined their child should be a son, the Post reported.
India, a country that has a deeply held preference for sons and male heirs, has an excess of 37 million males, according to its most recent census, the Post reported.
The number of newborn female babies compared with males has continued to plummet, even as the country grows more developed and prosperous. The imbalance creates a surplus of bachelors and exacerbates human trafficking, both for brides and, possibly, prostitution.
Exacerbating the situation has been the use of sex-selective technology in the past 30 years, which though banned is still widespread, the Post reported.
In the two countries, 50 million excess males are under age 20, the Post reported.
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