托福阅读：The war on baby girls一场向女孩发起的战争(2)

bigpig

　　英文原文：
　　The dearth and death of little sisters
　　Most people know China and northern India have unnaturally large numbers of boys. But few appreciate how bad the problem is, or that it is rising. In China the imbalance between the sexes was 108 boys to 100 girls for the generation born in the late 1980s; for the generation of the early 2000s, it was 124 to 100. In some Chinese provinces the ratio is an unprecedented 130 to 100. The destruction is worst in China but has spread far beyond. Other East Asian countries, including Taiwan and Singapore, former communist states in the western Balkans and the Caucasus, and even sections of America’s population (Chinese- and Japanese-Americans, for example): all these have distorted sex ratios. Gendercide exists on almost every continent. It affects rich and poor; educated and illiterate; Hindu, Muslim, Confucian and Christian alike.
　　Wealth does not stop it. Taiwan and Singapore have open, rich economies. Within China and India the areas with the worst sex ratios are the richest, best-educated ones. And China’s one-child policy can only be part of the problem, given that so many other countries are affected.
　　In fact the destruction of baby girls is a product of three forces: the ancient preference for sons; a modern desire for smaller families; and ultrasound scanning and other technologies that identify the sex of a fetus. In societies where four or six children were common, a boy would almost certainly come along eventually; son preference did not need to exist at the expense of daughters. But now couples want two children—or, as in China, are allowed only one—they will sacrifice unborn daughters to their pursuit of a son. That is why sex ratios are most distorted in the modern, open parts of China and India. It is also why ratios are more skewed after the first child: parents may accept a daughter first time round but will do anything to ensure their next—and probably last—child is a boy. The boy-girl ratio is above 200 for a third child in some places.

bigpig

　　参考译文：
　　很多人都知道，中国和北印度用非自然手段增加了男孩的数量。但很少有人意识到这样做有什么问题，正在产生哪些问题。80年代末，中国内地的男女比例为108：100，到了21世纪初期，这个比例变成了123：100。在内地的某些省份，比例甚至超过了130：100。男女比例失衡带来的破坏在中国最严重的，但这样的破坏还有蔓延地更远。包括台湾和新加坡在内的其他东亚国家和地区，西巴尔干和高加索地区的前共产主义国家，甚至美国的一些人群中（例如中美混血，日美混血家庭），男女比例都出现了失衡。这个问题存在范围极广，无论贫富，无论教育背景，无论宗教信仰。
　　财富无法阻止这个问题的产生。台湾和新加坡都是开放富有的经济体，而中国人口比率最失调的地区恰恰是那些最富有、受教育程度最高的地区。中国的独生子女政策并非问题的全部原因，很多其他的国家也同样有此问题。
　　女孩数量少的原因有三：一，人们自古以来就偏爱男孩；二，现代人更喜欢小型的家庭；三，包括超声波以及其他可以确定婴儿性别的技术的诞生。如果一个家庭有4到6个孩子，其中有个男孩是很正常的。对男孩的偏爱不会以牺牲女孩为代价。但是现在大家只想要两个小孩，像中国更是只允许生一个小孩，这种情况下，大家就会放弃没出生的女婴，一心生个男孩。正因如此，中国和印度最开放、最现代的地区也是男女比例最失衡的地区。这也解释了为何二胎、三胎的男女比例会高于一胎：父母能接受第一个孩子是女孩，但一定会确保第二个孩子——很有可能是最后一个孩子是男孩。在某些地方，三胎的男女比例超过了200：100。