Gender issues have always been a topic that contemporary netizens are very keen to discuss, and in recent years there have been reports on the sex ratio between men and women. While the data reported is different, there is a unifying trend towards more men and fewer women.
Some people once joked that only one in every 100 men can successfully marry a wife, which is still in the case of contemporary women who are very willing to marry. In fact, the problem of more men and fewer women is not only very obvious in modern times, but also similar problems have occurred during the Sui Dynasty.
This is because under the influence of traditional feudal thinking, many people on the mainland have a bad sense of preferring sons to daughters. Fortunately, with the establishment of New China, the social status of women is significantly improving, and the current situation of son preference has also eased. In the past, people always said that boys were a continuation of a family bloodline, but now the net growth of the female population is gradually surpassing.
This can also prove that equal rights for men and women have achieved initial results on the mainland. However, combined with the huge population base, the current imbalance between men and women in the mainland is still very serious, and the total male population is significantly higher than that of women. The marriage rate of contemporary young people has decreased significantly, and the proportion of men and women in the population has been changing since 2000.
To analyze the term sex ratio, it is necessary to distinguish between the two concepts of birth sex ratio and population sex ratio in advance. With the changes in mainland fertility policies, the distinction between sex ratios is constantly changing. At first, the mainland implemented a family planning policy, and each family could only have one child, but now the state has called for three children.
From the perspective of physiological factors, the average life expectancy of women is longer than that of men. When the idea of son preference prevailed decades ago, the mainland also happened to introduce a family planning policy that could only have one child, so female babies became the first choice for abortion. Perhaps because of the influence of the variable of life expectancy, the gender ratio between men and women has gradually changed since the gradual liberalization of fertility policies.
2021 is a very critical year, although the total population index of the mainland has increased very little in that year, but the proportion of men and women has changed. The female population increased by 940,000 and the male population decreased by 460,000. It was also the first time since 1978 that the male population had declined.
The change of this trend is not only reflected in the fluctuation of values, but also in the change of social status quo. The change in the concept of fertility has led to the rejection of the idea of son preference, and the willingness of young people to have boys is getting lower and lower. After all, according to the current level of socio-economic development, men often need to bear heavier financial pressures on marriage.
People often complain that having a boy is opening a construction bank and needing to continue to move bricks to make money to buy a house. If you give birth to a daughter, you are China Merchants Bank, you don't need to worry about your daughter's marriage, and you can also enjoy the care of intimate little cotton jackets. Of course, in addition to the concept of fertility, the physiological age change has also made China enter the aging era in advance.
Data from the 2015 Population Age Survey show that the average life expectancy of men on the mainland is 73.64 years, while the average life expectancy of women is 79.43 years. Although the World Health Organization adjusted the study data in 2019, the average life expectancy of women in China is still 5.8 years longer than that of men.
The higher mortality rate for men has led to a gradual increase in the net growth of the female population. According to the available census data, the proportion of men and women has changed, with the proportion of women gradually increasing and the proportion of men gradually decreasing. The ratio of men to women has dropped from 107.56 in 1953 to 101.88 in 2021.
The status of women in contemporary society is gradually improving, which can be reflected in higher education. Whether it is a college degree or a postgraduate degree, the proportion of women far exceeds that of men. Young women in their 20s are under much lower social and economic pressure than men compared to men.
Men with poor family conditions mostly choose to enter employment early, while the number of women pursuing higher education is increasing year by year. In addition, the proportion of women living in first-tier cities is also increasing, and the total number of women in cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen is higher than that of men.
Data suggest that the age of belonging to women is coming. Since the post-00s generation, the ratio of men to women has been changing, and the number of girls is increasing, which will also affect the future change in marriage rates and mate selection concepts, as well as the change in workplace distribution.
Most women, when choosing their other half, will ask each other to be better than themselves. With the enhancement of women's own abilities and the improvement of their education level, they are no longer willing to easily find someone to enter marriage like their ancestors, and they are even more unwilling to marry and have children prematurely.
This also means that even if the ratio of men to women changes, there will be more women and fewer men in the future, which does not mean that men will have more choices in the marriage market. The historical status quo of obeying the orders of parents and matchmakers in the past has ceased to exist, and the idea of marriage and childbearing is filled with the minds of contemporary young women.
After all, marriage should be a win-win battle of cooperation, which is based on the premise that both husband and wife have equal status. When marriage is in a state of inequality, the nature of marriage has changed. But even so, we should still believe in love and look forward to our future and marriage.