I’m sure there many men like this in the U.S., so we can just observe them for an idea lol.

What happened in China is that men started to consider females outside of their family ties, social class, local areas and they even reached out to foreign women. Chinese women got a boost in social value just in time as China left behind it’s Third World status. This was all kind of a good thing, I think.

Another consequence is that tens of thousands of Chinese girls were adopted out to the US, Canada, and Australia (primarily). This has created an entire sub-culture of Chinese girls (soon to be women) with no actual connection to their Asian heritage. They simply identify as American, or Canadian (etc.). And unlike other Asian/Americans (for example), they cannot trace their family story back to China (either officially through genealogy or even anecdotally).

This contributes to diluting their Chinese heritage (which is too bad) but also bolsters the “melting pot” persona of their adopted country (which is a good thing).

At least this has been my experience with my daughter, whom we adopted from China.

Maybe the government will do something to reward families for having girl babies. Chances are very young women will pair up with older men as girls come of age if that happens. Of course this is 20–30 years down the road. And, all the things @Neizvestnaya said.

I get concerned when the balance is disrupted in this way, as it can create a “woman as desirable/tradeable commodity” mentality which will ultimately deprive women of personal power.

@JilltheTooth Yes, I see how that could happen. I have always thought the imbalance could possibly give more power, in that they would be in demand, and could pick and choose from the oversupply of men. But, I can see how the reverse could happen as you point out.

Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale deals in a frightening way with what can happen when breeding stock is depleted. Granted, her scenario has a disturbing religious overtone, but it still addresses the “commodity” issue.

The problem is that in China, sons are the parent’s social security system. Sons are much more valuable for that reason. Since China is all about filial piety, they feel it is the job of the son to look after the parents, and not the job of the parents to look after the sons. Thus the needs of the sons are not as important, I think. It’s not such a big deal that the sons have no wives. It’s a much bigger deal if you have no sons to care for you when you are old.

China could get rid of it’s one child policy, or they could develop a social security system. Both approaches would alleviate the pressure to have sons.

Other than that, I don’t think we can predict what will happen with anything other than wild guesses. Social programming of this magnitude is completely unpredictable. Perhaps there will be women all over the world clamoring to find “rich” Chinese husbands, just as they are now clamoring for “rich” American husbands.

@wundayatta From what I understand the one child policy has been considered effective in not only controlling the population, but resulting in better healthcare if the birth rate was double or triple, which is what it had been before the policy I think, and families are able to save more income, and scarcity of resources is less a worry. It is not much different than Americans who want the poor to stop having babies they can’t afford I think. In the end families innVhina can have more than one, they just have to pay. I am not agreeing with the government having such a policy, but the attitudes are not much different I am thinking from our own culture, or not as different as people want it to seem. I say all of this because you speak of a social security system curing the need for one baby, but I don’t necessarily think that is how it would pay out when I look at America and the issues here.