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The percentages matter, but the numbers matter too. Taiwan had nearly a 10 percent surplus of men when Chiang Kai-shek's defeated armies settled there in 1949. Women who were young in the 1950s in Taiwan (I have spoken to many of these about that era) remember fondly that they could be very choosy about whom they married. Many men in that era never did marry. (Taiwan has had tolerated prostitution throughout the postwar period, which presumably is how the unmatched men dealt with being unmatched.) Today, Taiwan is a HUGE destination for young women from poorer countries (there are a lot of poorer countries than Taiwan, notably Vietnam) who are brought in as "mail-order brides" for older men. But for China to do the same, the Communist Party would have to explicitly give up the claim that it eliminated prostitution after "Liberation" in 1949, and the number of women needed to move into China--from countries that themselves often have shortages of women--would be enormous. Absolute numbers matter. It's much more difficult for China to deal with this problem than for any other country, because of the sheer size of the problem.


A gender imbalance is NORMAL. The United States has surplus of 1.3 million men age 0-14. It's not really a problem because men die young or single all the time. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...

  USA Age structure:    
  0-14 years: 20.2% (male 31,639,127/female 30,305,704)
  15-64 years: 67% (male 102,665,043/female 103,129,321)
  65 years and over: 12.8% (male 16,901,232/female 22,571,696) (2009 est.) 
  Sex ratio:    
  *at birth: 1.05 male(s)/female*
  under 15 years: 1.04 male(s)/female
  15-64 years: 1 male(s)/female
  65 years and over: 0.75 male(s)/female
  total population: 0.97 male(s)/female (2009 est.)

  China Age structure:    
  0-14 years: 19.8% (male 140,877,745/female 124,290,090)
  15-64 years: 72.1% (male 495,724,889/female 469,182,087)
  65 years and over: 8.1% (male 51,774,115/female 56,764,042) (2009 est.) 
  Sex ratio:    
  *at birth: 1.1 male(s)/female*
  under 15 years: 1.13 male(s)/female
  15-64 years: 1.06 male(s)/female
  65 years and over: 0.91 male(s)/female
  total population: 1.06 male(s)/female (2009 est.)

  India:
  Age structure:    
  0-14 years: 31.1% (male 190,075,426/female 172,799,553)
  15-64 years: 63.6% (male 381,446,079/female 359,802,209)
  65 years and over: 5.3% (male 29,364,920/female 32,591,030) (2009 est.) 
  Sex ratio:    
  *at birth: 1.12 male(s)/female*
  under 15 years: 1.1 male(s)/female
  15-64 years: 1.06 male(s)/female
  65 years and over: 0.9 male(s)/female
  total population: 1.06 male(s)/female (2009 est.)
China's surplus might be 50% larger than normal, but it's still less than india and not all that far from normal.




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