Population imbalance to give birth to society defects

ONE WAY STREET: More females need to be born to offset the imbalance

Head of the National Economics University’s Population and Social Affairs Institute, associate Professor Nguyen Dinh Cu, told Vietnam Investment Review the current decline in the proportion of baby girls born could make it difficult for Vietnamese men to find a wife in the near future.
“[It is problematic] especially because we [Vietnam] are located in a corridor of countries which also have a shortage of females, such as China, Taiwan and South Korea,” Cu said.
According to a recent survey done by the Population and Social Affairs Institute, a growing gender imbalance in newborns is developing where female births are on the decline.
According to the survey, the Red River delta in northern Vietnam had the highest sex ratio imbalance. For every 100 females aged one to four years, there are 116 males, while the figures in 1999 in northern cities and provinces of Hanoi, Haiphong, Ha Tay, Hai Duong and Nam Dinh were 110, 118, 114, 113 and 111 males respectively for each 100 females.
Cu said that parents’ preference for having male children and ensuing medical interventions were creating the imbalance in Vietnam’s population.
Vietnam, Cu said, must avoid the fate of many other countries in the world, such as China, where for every 100 females born there were 120 males meaning that in coming decades around 40 million Chinese males will not be able to find a Chinese wife.
He suggested increasing the awareness of family planning, birth-control and a possible ban on ultrasounds used for gender selection as measures to help build a healthy and viable population.
In Vietnam the Population Ordinance issued in 2003 prohibits the choice of sex and abortion. The Gender Equality Law was also approved by the National Assembly in 2006. However, the implementation of the law must be strengthened.