CHINA:A plan is afoot to change the way people think about girls, writes Clifford Coonanin Beijing
In the Chinese countryside, giving birth to a boy who can help till the fields or go to work in one of the rich coastal cities is a true blessing, a way of securing the family's future and a potential route out of poverty.
Having a girl is like raising a child for someone else, as you will eventually be forced to marry her off into another family, complete with an expensive dowry.
This fondness for boy children is glaringly obvious in small villages and towns, where there are plenty of boys playing in the streets but noticeably fewer girls.
The traditional preference for boys has led to an alarming rise in the gender imbalance, with 118 boys born for every 100 girls. In Guangdong and Hainan provinces in southern China, the ratio is as high as 130 boys to 100 girls, as wider use of ultrasound tests and easy availability of abortions compounds the problem. And although female infanticide is not as widely practised as in days gone by, there are still horror stories of girl babies killed at birth, of sick girls being allowed to die or abandoned in train stations.
This week the government said the rising sex-ratio imbalance was a dangerous phenomenon and a possible threat to stability, one the country's top population official reckons could take up to 15 years to resolve.
Zhang Weiqing, head of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, said the situation was extremely complex. He conceded that three decades of the one-child policy had contributed to the problem, but insisted it was not the main cause.
"It has only exacerbated the problem, but that is not to say that having this policy has necessarily caused the large imbalance," Mr Zhang said.
"There are many reasons for the gender imbalance, and the first is the existence for thousands of years of a deep-rooted traditional view that men are worth more than women," he said.
Already the world's most populous nation with 1.3 billion people, Mr Zhang said the government's population-control schemes have prevented 400 million births in the past 30 years.
Like it or not, China would be forced to stick to the one-child policy for the time being - the baby-boom generation of the 1970s and 1980s has now reached marriage and childbearing age, risking another population surge in China if fertility restrictions are dropped.
China's population is expected to grow by up to 10 million people every year and is forecast to peak during the first half of this century, putting a heavy strain on underfunded social welfare and health systems.
Mr Zhang said the one-child policy was not really an accurate name for what was in fact a series of population-control measures. Only one-third of the population was strictly limited to just one child - poor farmers in many provinces are allowed to have two children, or another baby if their first is a girl, while ethnic minorities are allowed to have two or more children.
Mr Zhang said South Korea, Taiwan and Pakistan had similar problems even though they lacked China's severe controls. As with everything else in China, the huge population means that the numbers involved are enormous.
While using ultrasound scans to determine a foetus's sex is illegal, it is widely practised and costs around €5 a go - or €3 if the test shows the foetus is a girl.
Many people are also unhappy about the way rich people buy their way around the one-child policy to have a second child, preferring to pay the fine - usually based on several months' income.
The Chinese government is trying to change the way people think about girls. It plans to redouble its efforts to raise the status of women in society and protect baby girls, and threatens harsh punishment for anyone using illegal gender selection tests and sex-selective abortions, and to severely punish anyone harming girl babies.
A report by the government published recently estimated that China would have 40 million more men of marriageable age than women by 2020. This could lead to a rise in human trafficking, already common in some border regions where women are sold from North Korea or Vietnam to become brides in China.
The Communist Party's Central Committee and the State Council, which is China's cabinet, has pledged to keep the country's population under 1.36 billion by 2010 and under 1.45 billion by 2020.
"We must draw lessons from several population explosions in Chinese history and maintain a low fertility level," Mr Zhang said.
There are rewards for parents who choose to have one or two children. To promote the family- planning policy in rural areas, the government will increase pension payments to €60 a month for the parents of single children, or two girls, once they reach 60 years of age.
Another problem is waiting in the wings - population control means the dependency ratio of working people to retired people is also becoming critical and the rising number of senior citizens has put a severe strain on China's social security, medical care and social service sector.