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So now understanding that there is a son preference in Asia and understanding the economic forces that drive it, what are the direct and indirect consequences? Directly, studies have shown that women receive less healthcare, nourishment, education, and overall care as children. Those that survive threats such as abortion, female infanticide, and death via abuse or neglect in childhood then come to face the marriage market. Economically speaking, women are in deficit, men are in surplus, so the value of women must go up. Unfortunately, this rudimentary interpretation of the situation does not translate to the truth in China and India. While women are scarcer, the marriage "market " in both of these countries accounts for the deficit in different ways. Assume for a moment that there are 110 men for every 100 women. The 100 most desirable men get married off quickly " desirability determined by things like education, income, social status, appearance, etc. The "quality " of the last 10 men that do not get married off is poor, or otherwise put, they are at the bottom of the food chain in terms of class and marriageability. Broadly speaking, this means that those men must either delay marriage or remain single, which would distort the patrilineal system China and India have had in place for many years. In fact, projections state that by 2030 more than 25% of Chinese men in their late 30s will never have married . But there is a gap in the scenario that was just presented: not all 100 women make it to the marriage market that was just described, as many are lost to kidnapping and sex trafficking, which only exacerbates the sex ratio problem. In the rudimentary economic analysis of the situation earlier, as the interpretation showed, the value of women increases proportionally with their scarcity. But the problem is that their value is being translated not to marriage but into a monetary value for illegal black market trafficking rings that deliver girls to un-wed men of all ages throughout Asia as brides or sex slaves.
