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> The US 2010 census was pretty close to 50/50 Well, China is as well (according to information above). 34 million is 2.5% of 1.34 billion (Chinese population

by tomp 11y ago

> The US 2010 census was pretty close to 50/50 Well, China is as well (according to information above). 34 million is 2.5% of 1.34 billion (Chinese population in 2010), so China is at 47.5/52.5.

Mz 11y ago
That's not that close. I have heard the imbalance is causing real problems. I mean, that is a 5 point difference and ...geez ...(breaks out calculator cuz I'm old) about a 9% difference. And probably worse in certain age groups. If 10% to 20% of men have no hope of getting married purely based on a lack of women, not counting women making other choices or being gay or whatever, that's going to have significant social consequences.
arjie 11y ago
That's pretty far from 50-50, man. It means one out of every ten men won't have a partner if you naively paired them up.
- olalonde 11y ago
  If that 34 million figure is correct, it would be 2.5%, not 10% ("one out of every ten").
  - shrewduser 11y ago
    sure, but you'd have to look at the age / demographics too wouldn't you? it might be 2.5% of the total population but women live longer on average than men so what happens if you look between the ages of say 20 to 30?
  - thaumasiotes 11y ago
    The "one out of every ten" figure is basically correct given the division stated in tomp's comment. Assume the population is 47.5% female / 52.5% male. Then, for every 525 men, there are 475 women. This means out of every 525 men, (525-475) = 50 of them can't mate, which is 9.5%. However, tomp is wrong that 2.5% of the population being surplus men implies that the population share is 47.5-52.5 (this split means 5% of the population are surplus men, not 2.5%). It actually implies 48.75-51.25, which means about 4.9% of men have no female counterpart in the population. And this is intuitively correct; if 2.5% of the whole population can't find a partner, and all of those people are men, and the numbers of men and women are approximately equal, it should be the case that about 5% of men can't find a partner.
  - ta_donk_gt 11y ago
    I come up with 4.9%. 1.35 billion in China, and assuming 34 million more men than women, that gives 692 million men and 658 million women. 34 million of those 692 million men do not have a corresponding woman. 34/692 = 0.04913294797688.
    - olalonde 11y ago
      Oh, you're right, I divided by the entire population instead of the the male population only.
- onlyrealcuzzo 11y ago
  Maybe they should let gay relationships on TV...
Andaith 11y ago
People don't usually marry for wildly different ages, so what about age brackets? 34m of the total population is 2.5%, but what is 34m as a percentage of the population between, say, 15yrs and 30yrs?
shawn-furyan 11y ago
Stepping out to a clearer source, Wikipedia[1] summarizes data from the World Bank and the CIA. I think the numbers that best reflect current China suggest a 12% (CIA at birth), 17% (CIA 15 or younger) or 19% (WB at birth) disparity depending on the estimate. Choose any of those and you've got a pretty huge disparity. I think that the article may have been looking only at a cohort, not the entire population, so taking the ratio of the quoted number of missing men against the entire Chinese population may be misleading. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_sex_ratio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_sex_ratio
deciplex 11y ago
By way of comparison, NYC is 53/47 in favor of females, and it is famously difficult for women to find men in NYC. That ratio is way more off-balance than you might think.

by tomp 11y ago

> The US 2010 census was pretty close to 50/50 Well, China is as well (according to information above). 34 million is 2.5% of 1.34 billion (Chinese population in 2010), so China is at 47.5/52.5.

Mz 11y ago

That's not that close. I have heard the imbalance is causing real problems. I mean, that is a 5 point difference and ...geez ...(breaks out calculator cuz I'm old) about a 9% difference. And probably worse in certain age groups. If 10% to 20% of men have no hope of getting married purely based on a lack of women, not counting women making other choices or being gay or whatever, that's going to have significant social consequences.

arjie 11y ago

That's pretty far from 50-50, man. It means one out of every ten men won't have a partner if you naively paired them up.

olalonde 11y ago
If that 34 million figure is correct, it would be 2.5%, not 10% ("one out of every ten").
- shrewduser 11y ago
  sure, but you'd have to look at the age / demographics too wouldn't you? it might be 2.5% of the total population but women live longer on average than men so what happens if you look between the ages of say 20 to 30?
- thaumasiotes 11y ago
  The "one out of every ten" figure is basically correct given the division stated in tomp's comment. Assume the population is 47.5% female / 52.5% male. Then, for every 525 men, there are 475 women. This means out of every 525 men, (525-475) = 50 of them can't mate, which is 9.5%. However, tomp is wrong that 2.5% of the population being surplus men implies that the population share is 47.5-52.5 (this split means 5% of the population are surplus men, not 2.5%). It actually implies 48.75-51.25, which means about 4.9% of men have no female counterpart in the population. And this is intuitively correct; if 2.5% of the whole population can't find a partner, and all of those people are men, and the numbers of men and women are approximately equal, it should be the case that about 5% of men can't find a partner.
- ta_donk_gt 11y ago
  I come up with 4.9%. 1.35 billion in China, and assuming 34 million more men than women, that gives 692 million men and 658 million women. 34 million of those 692 million men do not have a corresponding woman. 34/692 = 0.04913294797688.
  - olalonde 11y ago
    Oh, you're right, I divided by the entire population instead of the the male population only.
onlyrealcuzzo 11y ago
Maybe they should let gay relationships on TV...

Andaith 11y ago

People don't usually marry for wildly different ages, so what about age brackets? 34m of the total population is 2.5%, but what is 34m as a percentage of the population between, say, 15yrs and 30yrs?

shawn-furyan 11y ago

Stepping out to a clearer source, Wikipedia[1] summarizes data from the World Bank and the CIA. I think the numbers that best reflect current China suggest a 12% (CIA at birth), 17% (CIA 15 or younger) or 19% (WB at birth) disparity depending on the estimate. Choose any of those and you've got a pretty huge disparity. I think that the article may have been looking only at a cohort, not the entire population, so taking the ratio of the quoted number of missing men against the entire Chinese population may be misleading. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_sex_ratio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_sex_ratio

deciplex 11y ago

By way of comparison, NYC is 53/47 in favor of females, and it is famously difficult for women to find men in NYC. That ratio is way more off-balance than you might think.