China has a history of female infanticide which spans 2,000 years. When Christian missionaries arrived in China in the late sixteenth century, they witnessed newborns being thrown into rivers or onto rubbish piles.^[1][2] In the seventeenth century Matteo Ricci documented that the practice occurred in several of China's provinces and said that the primary reason for the practice was poverty.^[2] The practice continued into the 19th century and declined precipitously during the Communist era,^[3] but has reemerged as an issue since the introduction of the one-child policy in the early 1980s.^[4] The 2020 census showed a male-to-female ratio of 105.07 to 100 for mainland China, a record low since the People's Republic of China began conducting censuses.^[5] Every year in China and India alone, there are close to two million instances of some form of female infanticide.^[6]

History

Confucianism has an influence on female infanticide in China. The fact that male children work to provide for their elderly and that certain traditions are male-driven lead many to believe they are more desirable.^[8]

19th century

During the 19th century, the practice was widespread. Readings from Qing texts show a prevalence of the term ni nü (to drown girls), and drowning was the most common method used to kill female children. Other methods used were suffocation and starvation.^[a][10] Exposure to the elements was another method: the child would be placed in a basket which was then placed in a tree. Buddhist nunneries created "baby towers" for people to leave a child.^[11] In 1845, in the province of Jiangxi, a missionary wrote that these children survived for up to two days while exposed to the elements and that those passing by would ignore the screaming child.^[12] Missionary David Abeel reported in 1844 that between one-fourth and one-third of all female children were killed at birth or soon after.^[13]

In 1878 French Jesuit missionary, Gabriel Palatre, collated documents from 13 provinces^[14] and the Annales de la Sainte-Enfance (Annals of the Holy Childhood), also found evidence of infanticide in Shanxi and Sichuan. According to the information collected by Palatre the practice was more widespread in the southeastern provinces and the Lower Yangzi River region.^[15]

20th century

In 1930, Rou Shi, a noted member of the May Fourth Movement, wrote the short story A Slave-Mother. In it he portrayed the extreme poverty in rural communities that was a direct cause of female infanticide.^[16]

One-Child Policy

In Chinese society, most parents preferred having sons, so in 1979 when the government created the One-Child Policy, baby girls were aborted or abandoned.^[17] If parents had more than one child they would be fined. The earning potential of the male heir compared to a female made parents believe that having female children would be an economic hardship, making female infanticide more desirable solution.^[8]

A white paper published by the Chinese government in 1980 stated that the practice of female infanticide was a "feudalistic evil".^[b] The state officially considers the practice a carryover from feudal times, not a result of the state's one-child policy. According to Jing-Bao Nie, it would be "inconceivable" to believe there is "no link" between the state's family planning policies and female infanticide.^[18]

On September 25, 1980, in an "open letter", the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party requested that members of the party, and those in the Communist Youth League, lead by example and have only one child. From the beginning of the one-child policy, there were concerns that it would lead to an imbalance in the sex ratio. Early in the 1980s, senior officials became increasingly concerned with reports of abandonment and female infanticide by parents desperate for a son. In 1984, the government attempted to address the issue by adjusting the one-child policy. Couples whose first child is a girl are allowed to have a second child.^[4] Even when exceptions were made to the One-Child Policy if a couple had a female child first, the baby girls were still discarded, because the parents didn't want the financial burden of having two children. They would continuously do this until they had a boy.^{[citation needed]}

Current situation

Many Chinese couples desire to have sons because they provide support and security to their aging parents later in life.^[19] Conversely, a daughter is expected to leave her parents upon marriage to join and care for her husband's family (parents-in-law).^[19] In rural households, which as of 2014 constitute almost half the Chinese population,^[20] males are additionally valuable for performing agricultural work and manual labor.^[19][21]

A 2005 intercensus survey demonstrated pronounced differences in sex ratio across provinces, ranging from 1.04 in Tibet to 1.43 in Jiangxi.^[22] Banister (2004), in her literature review on China's shortage of girls, suggested that there has been a resurgence in the prevalence of female infanticide following the introduction of the one-child policy.^[23] On the other hand, many researchers have argued that female infanticide is rare in China today,^[22][24] especially since the government has outlawed the practice.^[25] Zeng and colleagues (1993), for example, contended that at least half of the nation's gender imbalance arises from the underreporting of female births.^[24]

According to the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF), the demographic shortfall of female babies who have died for gender-related issues is in the same range as the 191 million estimated dead accounting for all conflicts in the twentieth century.^[26] In 2012, the documentary It's a Girl: The Three Deadliest Words in the World was released. It focused on female infanticide in India and China.^[27]

According to China's 2020 census (the Seventh National Population Census of the People's Republic of China), the gender ratio of mainland China has improved, with the male-to-female ratio reaching a new record low of 105.07.^[5] This is the most balanced gender ratio since the PRC began conducting a census in 1953.^[5]

Female infanticides' effects on population and society

Female infanticide, especially as a result of the One-Child Policy, has caused an imbalance of genders and available females of childbearing age resulting in a decline in population and births. In 2017 there were under 13 birth per 1000 people. There were also 33 million more men than women.^[28][29] The ratio imbalance between childbearing females and males because of female infanticide has also led to the rise of sex trafficking and bridal kidnapping of females or importing brides from other countries.^[30]

Preventing female infanticide

The Chinese government has enacted three laws to try to prevent future occurrences of female infanticide. The Mother and Child Health Care Law of 1994 prevented sex identification of the fetus and prohibited the use of technology for the use of selective abortions based on the fetus's sex in order to protect female infants.^[30] The Marriage Law and the Women's Protection Law both prohibit female infanticide and protect women's rights.^[8] There is also a campaign started called "Care for Girls" which gives financial support to female-only families and supports equality between the genders.^[30]

Underreporting of female babies

In December 2016, researchers at the University of Kansas reported that the sex disparity in China was likely exaggerated due to administrative under-reporting and that delayed registration of females, instead of the abortion and infanticide practices. The finding challenged the earlier assumptions that rural Chinese villagers killed their daughters on a massive scale and concluded that as many as 10 to 15 million missing women hadn't received proper birth registration since 1982.^[31][32] The underreporting is attributed to politics, with families trying to avoid penalties when girls were born, and local government concealing the lack of enforcement from the central government. This implied that the sex disparity of the Chinese newborns was likely exaggerated significantly in previous analyses.^[33][34][35] Though the degree of data discrepancy, the challenge in relation to sex-ratio imbalance in China is still disputed among scholars.^[36][37]