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Saturday, September 5, 2015

Issues with Gender Ratios

And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach.
--Isaiah 4:1

The implication behind this verse is that the gender ratios will be skewed, probably because of the number of men that will die in the wars preceding the Second Coming. And what happens when gender ratios are skewed so the number of women outnumber men?

From the Daily Mail:
A Chinese city has recently come under fire for its culture of polyamorous relationships and kept men.

In Dongguan, southern China, a man with several girlfriends who pay to 'keep' him is now the norm, reported People's Daily Online.

Most of the young women involved are low-paid factory workers who are hoping to get married to the men in the near future.

Chinese media recently published a set of pictures showing many men in Dongguan are holding, kissing or lying in bed with more than one woman.

* * *

The culture of polyamorous relationships has given rise to another phenomenon - that of kept men.

This problem is so widespread that it has even given rise to a local saying: 'It's not easy for a male factory worker to find a job but a female worker cannot go without a boyfriend.'

Women who share a boyfriend are said to lavish attention and money on the men in order to become the favourite.

* * *

For the boyfriend, there was no need to ask for money - his girlfriends are more than happy to give it to him to win favours.

Dongguan's problem stems from the huge gap between its male and female population.

While the rest of China has more men than women, Dongguan has just 89 men for every 100 women.

This is because female factory workers are preferred, which in turn encourages more female migrant workers to move to the region for work.

A similar effect has also been reported in other cities with a similar skew.

Coupled with societal pressures for women to marry by 27, the problem of boyfriend sharing and kept men has intensified.
 Update (9/9/2015): "Why College-Educated Women Can't Find Love" at the Daily Beast. "The current college class breakdown of women to men is 57:43, which means that there will be about one-third more women than men with college degrees when graduation arrives." Because of hypergamy, women refuse to "marry down," and so are stuck competing for an ever smaller pool of acceptable men.

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