In a recent article on www.trust.org it is said that in China, overall infant mortality has seen a sharp decline in recent years. This is due to the fact that in recent years the Chinese government has pushed for women to give birth in hospitals as opposed to at home. Though this is an improvement in the aggregate data, the decompressed data show is showing a different story. Though the overall infant mortality rate has dropped, the mortality rate is still alarmingly high for infant girls. These steps that the Chinese government has made are indeed an improvement, but there are still far greater issues at hand that the Chinese government is not addressing. In order to truly improve China’s infamously high mortality rate, it is necessary that the issue of male favoritism in Chinese society be addressed, because the rate at which infant girls are dying in China, despite this recent improvement is still alarming. China’s population is already extremely lacking in women, and unless the government takes some major steps to try and turn this trend around, they will have a serious issue on their hands in the next twenty years or so.
Many see issues like these as a one time fix, fix the infant mortality rate and everything's fixed. What isn't so easy to fix is their mindset and their culture. Like many developing and undeveloped countries in the world, sons seem more valuable because they can work and bring money back into the family. For girls, they spend resources to raise them, only to have to send them to another family, sometimes with a dowry. They get nothing but some housework in her years of growing up. As China industrializes further and girls start to get good educations, they will begin to move to larger cities to search for opportunities. The question is whether or not this is enough to change the minds of the Chinese.
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ReplyDeleteIt is true that in many developing countries overall infant mortality has seen a sharp decline in recent years. However, there are some downside of it, such as mortality rate between infant boys and girls are different. This issue might have occurred because in some developing countries, male favoritism still exist. However, issues like this are really hard to fix only by government regulations. Male favoritism is related to what people in china believe and their cultures. Therefore, rather than regulation form the government, educating people will be more effective to solve the problem. Without educating Chinese people,regulations from the government will not really change the situation.
ReplyDeleteThis is an unfortunate consequence which stems from a culture that has long been patrilineal and patrilocal, and as such puts much more value in male children. Combined with the one child policy, male children simply receive better care in many cases. Males bring back more to the parents, while females eventually leave for another family. So this is a unique case where lack of education or bad and broken infrastructure isn't the problem, but rather the way China's culture views women. It could be possible to have education fix this somehow, but the reality is the people of China have to want to change themselves as well. On top of that, the economic benefits of having a male child have to be balanced out; poor families can't afford to feed a child can't will go to another family, so dealing with poverty would help this problem as well.
ReplyDeleteThe view that the Chinese hold with regard to girls and women is one that hinders them socially and economically. There are those that attribute the source of this outlook to their culture, while others may point to the lack of education. Perhaps, it is both. Regardless, to move forward, education is key – educating women as much as men, and educating men on the importance of women. To do otherwise, say to try and change their culture, would be to begin an endeavor doomed to fail. Increasing education would change their culture anyway.
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