China moves to correct an imbalance

Today, China has one of the world’s worst cases of ‘‘missing’’ girls. Until recent years, the government largely ignored or denied the problem. Last March, President Hu Jintao declared it must be solved by 2010. Government officials now have declared that sex-selective abortions will become a criminal offense. Such abortions were already banned, but doctors often accepted bribes from parents who wanted to guarantee a boy.Government officials are hardly backing away from population control. But the government is examining various possible changes. Last year, the State Council, China’s Cabinet, appointed a research group of 250 demographers and other experts to examine issues like imbalance between the sexes, dropping fertility rates and ways to prepare for China’s rapidly aging population. It may also address whether and when China should move to a nationwide two-child policy to prevent a looming baby bust.

‘‘In the future, I think we have to consider this issue,’’ said Hao Linna, spokeswoman for the National Population and Family Planning Commission. ‘‘As for what time, when and how, we need to research these issues. We need to study how to shift, in what form and what method.’’

Yet government officials agree that reversing the birth imbalance between boys and girls cannot be postponed. Experts debate to what extent China’s population policy should be blamed for the problem, noting that the problem predates the one-child policy. Other Asian countries like India and South Korea without such policies also have lopsided birth rates. But statistics show that China’s imbalance has widened since population controls began in the late 1970s.

In early January, the government announced that the nationwide ratio had reached 119 boys for every 100 girls. Studies show that the average rate for the rest of the world is about 105 boys for every 100 girls. Demographers predict that in a few decades China could have up to 40 million bachelors unable to find mates.

On a recent afternoon here in southeastern China, hundreds of students in the dirt courtyard of Lanxi Middle School held a parade rehearsal. The school goes through 12th grade, and about 60 percent of students in the higher grades are male. The marchers, mostly boys, waved flags and kicked dust in the air beside a billboard promoting the latest propaganda campaign: Respect Girls.

Local officials brought a visiting reporter here because Lanxi Middle School is participating in a ‘‘Care for Girls’’ pilot programme. Female students from poor families are getting free tuition, as are students from families with two girls. The principal, Hu Hongbin, happily shows off an exhibition room where posters carry pictures of girls in the programme. Hu said the exhibition room was supposed to build the self-esteem of girls, though it also seemed intended to impress visiting officials. Still, he said that young women were now eligible for college scholarships and that the number of recent female graduates attending college jumped to 271 in 2004 from 149 in 2003.

Also, in the countryside, the government has introduced a test program under which about 300,000 rural elderly people are receiving annual pensions of $180, a good amount in the countryside, if they had only one child or if they had daughters.