Influence Of Sex Ratio Imbalance In China

Since 1980,China's population sex ratio increased greatly.In 2008 sex ratio at birth(SRB)reached 121 and it was still up to 114 in 2015.Newspapers reported that Gender imbalance caused "bachelor crisis”and "high bride price".But there is no rigorous academic research about there relationship.It is necessary to study the influence of sex ratio imbalance from the theoretical and empirical point of view.The existing research mainly discusses the macro effects of gender imbalance,such as house price,saving rate and crime rate.However,its micro mechanism got less attention.This study attempts to fill this gap.The imbalance of sex ratio has become the new normal in our society.The research on its welfare effect is still very little,which is also an important part of this research.In particular,this paper includes the following parts.First,based on literature review,we find some problems in measurement of sex ratio.Then we make some correction and calibration using several CENSUS.Second,On the basis of data calibration,we focus on the impact of gender imbalance on marital squeeze.brideprice and dowry growth.Besides,we show that how income affect the sex ratio's effect on brideprice.Third,we study how brideprice inflation affect sex ratio at birth.Fourth,we research the welfare effect of gender imbalances,including the impact of high brideprice on household consumption,wealth,liabilities,and how marriage expectations under gender imbalances affect children's education investment.This study is divided into eight chapters.We observe phenomenon.puts forward problems,analyzes and solves problems.The main contents of each chapter are as following.In chapter one,we introduce the research background and explain the research ideas and framework of this paper,then put forward the main problems and point out the innovation and shortcomings of this research.In chapter two we review the relevant literatures about China and abroad.First we review some papers about the reason and influence of sex ratio imbalance in China.Besides,we introduce some research about marriage market competition and marital transfer.Through the review of the literature,we further clarify the innovation and value of this research.Based on the literature review,the third chapter first analyzes the measurement error problem about the construction of the sex ratio data in the existing research.We put forward three problems in CENSUS,including the gender difference in mortality ratio,less reporting young men and missing soldiers.In this paper,sex ratio data are corrected and calibrated by comparing multi-years' CENSUS.And the sex ratio of marriage market is constructed using the corrected data.Then we show the description of sex ratio increase since 1980.The fourth chapter first describe the relationship between brideprice(dowry)and income in urban and rural area.The relationship between brideprice(dowry)and sex ratio of marriage market is described also.Based on clarifying these facts,we construct a marriage matching model with gender imbalance and brideprice.The model shows us that sex ratio imbalance leads to marriage squeezing and brideprice inflation.Further,the theoretical hypothesis was tested using the CHARLS children sample data.In addition,we analysis the brideprice motivation for the woman's family,and put forward that local income growth decreased the effect of sex ratio imbalance on brideprice.Then we provided the empirical evidences.The fifth chapter further studies the brideprice's effects as marriage market price signal.Combined 2015 regional level brideprice data and 2015 national 1%population sampling survey data,we employ the cross section regression and difference-in-differences model to test how the brideprice affect household gender selection.We confirmed that the probability of bearing boy declined with high brideprice.The sixth chapter studied the welfare effect of gender imbalance from the perspective of family,focusing on the effect of brideprice paying on household consumption,assets,liabilities and poverty.We also studied the effect of brideprice on parental self-evaluation and life satisfaction.There were serious endogenous problems in this part.We employed the indirect instrument variable approach and found that the brideprice has indeed become a heavy economic burden for male family.The seventh chapter studies how gender imbalance affects children's education investment.We analysis the specific mechanisms and provide empirical evidence.Chapter 8 summarizes the main contents and conclusions of the whole paper.We also discuss the policy implications,puts forward possible solutions to solve the"bachelor crisis" and "high brideprice".Then we also point out the future research direction.The main conclusions of this study are as follows.First,comparing several years' CENSUS data,long table data and 1%sample survey data,we found that there was a great measurement error if we just use a single CENSUS data to calculate the sex ratio,because of less reporting low age girls,omitting the young migrating males,not reporting active military.We use several years' CENSUS data's comparison,to correct the CENSUS data and avoid the three problems.Second.based on the data correction,we provide the theoretical and empirical evidences that marriage squeezing is caused by sex ratio imbalance.As the sex ratio went up,the probability of female getting marriage increased.while the male's decreased.This phenomenon existed only in rural areas,as the urban male went to rural area to find wives with increasing sex ratio.At the same time,the bride price paid by rural male increased significantly with gender imbalance.The sex ratio imbalance can explain 41%-54%of the bride price increase since 1980.The bride price paid by urban men and the dowry in urban and rural areas were not significantly affected by gender imbalances.Bride price reflects the females' price while there is great difference between female supply and male demand.Brideprice is a price signal in China's marriage market.Not only that,brideprice also reflects the opportunity cost of bearing a boy.Then we matched the county level brideprice 2015 1%population sampling survey data.Employing crossection regression and DID method we find that parents will give birth to more girls with brideprice increasing.When we control the local dowry and income and the current marriage market sex ratio,the effect is still significant in economically and statistically.Besides,the effect is bigger for rural family and low education parents.The brideprice custom plays an important role in gender imbalance adjustment.Third,the girl's parents have a more incentive to require more brideprice with the lower regional income.On the one hand,girls' parents want to screen high quality male for their daughter.On the other hand,girls' parents want to get more brideprice income if they are in poor.Sex ratio imbalance gives the opportunity to girls' parents to require more brideprice.We find that the sex ratio's effect on brideprice will decline while the local income increases.Fourth,the welfare analysis shows paying high brideprice caused serious impact on family economic life.In particular,the household's food consumption,monthly and annual per capita consumption expenditure,and net assets decreased significantly as the payment of brideprice increased.The household's debt ratio and consumption poverty rate increased with the rise of brideprice.In addition,the increase in brideprice also made parents' self-evaluation on health and life satisfaction worse.Fifth,gender imbalance affects the family's marriage expectations for their children.Thus gender imbalance affects the parents' investment on children's education and marriage age choice.Gender imbalance led to a significantly lower level of male education,especially for rural family and parents with low education.Women don not purely benefit a lot from unbalanced sex ratio.For those women with brothers,they get less education investment with increasing sex ratio.Men and women will marry earlier with gender imbalance.This paper studies the effect of sex ratio imbalance by constructing theoretical and empirical model.We focus on the marriage market competition.The theoretical significance is to clarify the micro-mechanism of gender imbalance on economic and social impact-marriage market competition.We verify brideprice's inflation and influence under sex ratio imbalance."High Brideprice" is the inevitable result of male competition in the marital market with gender imbalance.Brideprice further influence the gender choice of current couples.It shows that sex ratio of marriage market will lead to the balance of abnormal sex ratio.The analysis about parents' motives of brideprice shows that poverty(low local income)and gender imbalance together led to the emergence of high brideprice.In addition,the analysis of brideprice's effect on family welfare provides a new perspective for research about sex ratio.The sex ratio's influence on children's education investment make us know more about the gender imbalance's social effect.Finally,this study analyzes the problems of the census data and make a correction,providing a more accurate data base for future research.This study reveals that the main driving factors behind the "bachelor crisis" and"astronomical bride price" are the imbalance of the gender structure of the population.The local governments introduce many policies to guide or limit brideprice.The central government pushed out the spiritual civilization construction such as"promotion of marital new wind".All these policies cure the symptoms,not the disease.This study shows that high brideprice is caused by the sex ratio imbalance.Limiting the price will not solve the gender imbalance behind the population crisis.Moreover,brideprice plays a great role in regulating the sex ratio of newborn population.interference of bride price will undermine the customs' price mechanism effect.In the long run,the promotion of gender equality and gender balance of population should be the root of policy.Our study also found that the income increase will reduce the woman's family's motives of arguing high brideprice.Gender imbalance's effect on brideprice inflation will decline with income growth.So raising the income in rural area will contribute to govern the brideprice inflation.All of these are the application value and policy implications of this study.The core mechanism of this study is the competition of marriage market competition and marriage payment under the abnormal sex ratio.However,compared with the collection of relevant foreign data,China's micro-data collection work is still relatively backward.Bride price and dowry are important customs in traditional marriage in China.The data used in this article is the brideprice or dowry paid by the parents for their children.For the corresponding dowry and brideprice in the marriage,we do not have the data.Besides,we don't know the property rights for dowry.The survey data collection is far from enough,some basic theories and hypothesis can not be identified and tested.In addition,newspapers often report brideprice and dowry at the regional level.However,we have no systematic collection about them.So we could not identify the mechanism between gender selection and brideprice perfectly.The above is the shortcomings of this study,but also the direction of the future study to promote.