Low Fertility and High Sex Ratio at Birth in Rural China: An Inevitable Tradeoff?

Yaqiang Qi, Peking University
Junhong Chu, Peking University

Many scholars attribute China's high sex ratio at birth and the "missing girls" problem to its stringent birth control policy. This paper discusses whether the tradeoff between high sex ratio at birth and low fertility in rural China is inevitable with the wide availability and accessibility of modern technology for prenatal sex determination, with or without the birth control program. The data are derived from a questionnaire survey of 1056 married women below age 45, in rural Henan in July and August 2001. We conclude that the tradeoff was inevitable with available modern technology for prenatal sex determination and safe abortion, and with strong son preference and declining family size preference, and with abortion as a socially accepted way of birth planning in a culture that views life as starts from live birth. But China's stringent birth control policy ushered its early arrival and exacerbated the problem.