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China's gender imbalance has had a large impact on today's Chinese culture and economy, but has also been largely influenced by past policies such, as the One Child Policy. Additionally, many families even today prefer having a single child and would prefer a son over a daughter, largely due to cultural values.
This map demonstrates differences in rural and urban trends amongst newborn sex-ratios and marriage rates from 2010, suggesting that the gender imbalance steaming from the One Child Policy is still an ongoing issue. Darker colored provinces demonstrate a higher sex-ratio, where a normal sex-ratio at birth is expected to naturally be around 105:100 males to females. There is also a somewhat of a correlation between areas with a high infant sex-ratio and a low marriage rate.
Within the past century, China's role in the global economy has grown rapidly, and many see that China still has much potential to grow. The vast majority of China's economic centers are located in the eastern part of the country, with many located near the coast for easy access to ports. The eastern side of Chin has long since been an economic pull for Chinese rural-urban migrants. The One Child Policy, in part, was directed at rural communities, allowing an additional child only if the family's first born was a girl. Following the One Child Policy, China also implemented a "Reform and Open Up" economic policy which made it desirable for rural youth to find more promising work in the manufacturing industry located in eastern urban areas (Migration Policy Institute). 145 million past and recent rural-urban migrants were reported in 2009, which is approximately 11% of China's total population. China faces numerous economic challenges with its rapid expansion, many of them have been linked to the One Child Policy. With an extremely low birth rate (12.49 births/1,000 , ranked 159th in the world (2015 est.) ), an unstable growth rate (0.45% , ranked 162nd in the world (2015 est.) ), a highly involved gender imbalance, and a massive number of rural youth leaving the country side, the fate of China's economic future does not come without critique or thorough debate.
When economic pressures are high and families are located in rural areas, boys are considered more valuable at birth. They are seen to have more economic potential and be able to support their parents later on. Women are less likely to do the types of work that are offered in the these areas, such as mining, mineral extraction, and other industrial-related labor activities. Women may leave these areas entirely for permanent or seasonal work in cities. Consequently, "households with a son in regions with a more skewed sex ratio demonstrate a greater willingness to accept relatively dangerous or unpleasant jobs and supply more work days (Wei and Zhang, 2011)."
Between the limitations brought on rural families by the One Child Policy and economic factors driving youth into urban areas, some pose the question of "Who is going to feed China?" in relation to temptations for some to abandon the rural, agricultural workforce, or for others to be tempted to use land for something a bit more cost-effective than growing crops. Changes in early 2000s that allowed for more than one child with a compensation fee affect more urban families than rural. Additionally, "Rural families and ethnic minorities can legitimately have more than one child, especially if the first is a girl (China Amends One-Child Policy, 2003)." Yet, exceptions like these in rural areas had been made on a local level in many places for years (Short and Zhai, 1998). In contrast, economic mobility has greatly improved in Urban areas since the One Child Policy (Andersen and Leo, 2008), but the One Child Policy alone probably is not the only government incentive that is responsible for this trend.
