Can Multiple Husbands Solve China’s Gender Imbalance?

It’s an interesting idea, but we don’t think polyandry would necessarily be great for women. More husbands could mean more work – especially since globally, women do two-and-a-half times as much unpaid care and domestic work as men.

China’s gender imbalance is a serious problem. The country has 30 to 40 million “missing women,” a situation caused by gender inequality and a preference for boys and exacerbated by the “one-child policy” in place from 1979 to 2015 and ongoing restrictions on women’s reproductive rights. This gender gap has made it difficult for many Chinese men to find wives.

It has also fueled a demand for trafficked women from abroad. Human Rights Watch documented bride trafficking in Myanmar, where each year hundreds of women and girls are deceived through false promises of employment into traveling to China, only to be sold to Chinese families as brides for about US$3,000 to $13,000 and held in sexual slavery, often for years.

Source: Can Multiple Husbands Solve China’s Gender Imbalance? | Human Rights Watch

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