JUST THE GIRLS: Yu Binghui (center) attends a special class in a district of Henan Province under a new program intended to encourage the education of daughters from poor families without sons
　　Wang Meiling, a middle-aged farmer from central Anhui Province, has to stop herself from crying when she thinks about what happened one night 18 years ago.
　　She came home from the hospital after undergoing a sterilization operation to find the door locked from the inside. Wang’s mother-in-law, who lived with her, had locked her out to express anger over the fact that the family would never have a male descendant.
　　“I had to sleep at my parents’ house that night,” said Wang, who has two daughters.
　　But she said she doesn’t regret her decision to have the surgical procedure to prevent future pregnancies. Since the family burden of supporting the two girls isn’t heavy, Wang and her husband have been able to concentrate more on earning money. She claimed that the family has even become well off by village standards.
　　An ancient Chinese tradition is that the sons in the family take care of the parents when they are too old to work, something that is still common in many parts of China, and in particular in rural areas. Many people cling to the tradition that “only a son can carry the family’s name” and “the more sons, the merrier the family.”
　　However, Wang and her husband need no longer worry about their life at a senior age. Local officials told reporters during a recent trip to the village that it will pay the endowment insurance for farmers who have one or two daughters, in line with family planning policies, and they can live in government homes for seniors for free.
　　Since the late 1970s, when China started implementing the family planning policy to check excessive population growth in the 1970s, many parents have taken all means necessary to guarantee a boy in the family, such as having successive births until a son is born or carrying out sex-selective abortions. The result is an increasingly lopsided sex ratio at birth and mounting social problems such as the illegal trade in single women of marriageable age due to a shortage of prospective wives.
　　The imbalance can no longer be ignored, and the Chinese Government has implemented new initiatives to try and improve the situation for the daughters and elderly parents of farmer families without sons.
　　
　　Serious imbalance
　　
　　OFFICIAL VISITORS: Zhao Lanying (second right), who has daughters and no sons, says she is content with her life at the seniors’ home financed by the district government
　　The internationally accepted normal range of the sex ratio at birth of males against 100 females is between 103 and 107. However, according to National Population and Family Planning Commission (NPFPC) statistics, in China the birth ratio of boys against girls in 2005 reached 118.58. In certain areas, the figure has surpassed 135, far beyond the normal range. The situation is more serious in the countryside than in cities. 　　“The birth gender imbalance has gone beyond the problem of population structure, and affects long-term social development. Would there be no effective way to solve this problem, the side effect will be disastrous,” said Zhao Baige, NPFPC Vice Minister.
　　Chinese media have recently carried many commentaries making similar statements. Last month the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) published its Green Book on Population and Labor 2006, which discusses in detail the rising gender imbalance in recent years. Zheng Zhenzhen, a researcher at the Institute of Population and Labor Economics of CASS, told a reporter that in 20 years, 10 percent of males of marriageable age in China will not be able to find a wife. In southern Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, in 20 years, 20 percent of males of this age might end up being bachelors.
　　NPFPC Minister Zhang Weiqing once wrote in an article that the reasons behind China’s rising gender ratio include the deep-rooted traditional preference of boys over girls and the lack of a functioning endowment insurance system. And a direct reason is the use of ultrasonic scanning technology to discover a baby’s sex before birth. Zhang, however, has said he thinks there is no direct link between the abnormal gender ratio and the adoption of the family planning policy.
　　
　　‘Care for girls’
　　
　　In October 2005, the Chinese Government for the first time included rebalancing the sex ratio at birth in its five-year plan for national economic and social development. Not long after, the State Council put forward a set of three-stage goals for this venture. By 2010, the sex ratio at birth will head back toward the normal level. By 2015, it will achieve a balance. By 2020, gender equality will be instilled into the public conscience and the balanced sex ratio will be stabilized.
　　Toward achieving the above goals, the Chinese Government has launched a “care for girls” program, which began in 2003 on a trial basis. In December 2005, the State Council released a document stipulating that the main goal of the program is to eliminate gender inequality through a range of measures.
　　On September 4, a big-scale publicity campaign co-organized by a dozen government ministries began in Beijing. This 18-day, 10,000-kilometer campaign covered six provinces and autonomous regions in central and western China. The regions on the route are provinces with serious imbalances in the sex ratio at birth. However, the publicity campaign only touched on a small number of the places in China that have a gender imbalance due to the traditional favoring of boys.
　　An official from the NPFPC said this high-profile operation is intended to herald the Chinese Government’s commitment to reversing the gender imbalance.

　　Yancheng District of Luohe City is located in central Henan Province, and was the first stop on the publicity campaign. This farming-dominated district has long had an imbalanced sex ratio at birth. 　　
　　Yu Binghui, a fifth grade student in Yancheng, has never met her birth father. When Yu’s mother was pregnant with her, her father knew from the ultrasonic scan that the baby was a girl and requested that his wife have an abortion. The couple quarreled over what to do and the father finally decided to desert the family.
　　The life of Yu and her mother has been poor since her birth and became even more difficult after the girl went to school. But the unfortunate family also felt hope, as Yu’s mother wanted a good education for her daughter in consideration of the future.
　　In 2003, Yancheng District appeared on the list for first batch of the “care for girls” pilot projects. Since then, the district government has released a series of policies favorable to the well-being of girls and their families. For example, for rural families that are in line with family planning policies and have only one or two daughters, their medical insurance is paid for by the government and the girls can receive a 20 percent discount for medical treatment at the hospital; members of these families can also get a free complete checkup once a year.
　　In 2005, to make sure that girls from poor families with only one or two daughters can continue their studies, the Yancheng District opened a “girls’ class” in every township. Students in these classes don’t have to pay any tuition fees, and the schools give them each free stationery and two school uniforms.
　　Yu is now in a girls-only class of 64 students. The school has selected its best teachers to teach the special class and has created a personalized document to record the personality, hobbies, interests and growth of each girl.
　　“I used to be jealous of other children for having a dad. But now, with all this help, I am a happy girl too,” Yu said during a visit to her school by reporters and officials.
　　Meanwhile, Yancheng District has also launched a plan to help families with one or two girls whose per-capita income is lower than the village’s average level. The methods include drafting a development plan for them, and providing them with information on moneymaking projects, small credit programs and job opportunities. Yancheng so far has designated 35 companies to absorb workers from poor rural families with one or two daughters and so far 552 girls from those families have found jobs at the companies.
　　
　　Support for seniors
　　
　　Zhao Lanying, 86, is all smiles when asking a reporter to look at the new clothing the seniors’ home has bought for her: “Gorgeous, isn’t it?”
　　Zhao, a farmer in Yancheng District who is from a poor family, hadn’t bought new clothes in a long time. She was widowed at an early age, and after her two daughters got married she lived alone in her old house without electricity.
　　The seniors’ home system still has limitations at the township level, and the government usually only pays for the accommodation of childless senior citizens. Zhao’s difficult yet all-too-common experience explains why the idea of “having a son to prepare for senior life” is still considered sensible in poverty-stricken rural China.
　　As part of the trial project started in 2003 to eliminate worries of parents with only daughters about their senior life, Yancheng District Government launched the Sunshine Project. Under the financing of this program, senior citizens’ homes at the township and village levels have been renovated and expanded, and offer free accommodation not only to childless senior citizens but also to those with one or two daughters.
　　According to the director of the Population and Family Planning Commission of Luohe City, Yancheng District has invested over 6 million yuan in establishing or expanding 98 seniors’ homes, accommodating a total of 975 elderly people, including 206 from families with one or two daughters.
　　The local newspaper Luohe Daily has reported that since the beginning of this year, 21 rural families with only daughters have decided to permanently give up the opportunity to have a second child, although permitted by the family planning policy.
　　Zhao has been living in the seniors’ home for two years. The accommodation is free and every resident receives 50 yuan in subsidies every month. In other cities with pilot projects, the local government has started paying for the endowment insurance of families of one or two daughters. For example, Ruichang City of central Jiangxi Province has pooled a total of 13 million yuan for the endowment insurance of 1,300 rural families with two daughters.
　　There are 71 residents at Zhao’s seniors’ home, and most are over 80 years old. Five senior citizens are from families with two daughters and two from families with only one daughter. Zhao shares an 18-square-meter room, which has two beds and a ceiling fan, with another elderly woman. “It is warm in winter and cool in summer,” she said.
　　Zhao’s two daughters come to visit her twice a month. In the daytime, she enjoys watching television in the entertainment room and being around other residents, though she is hard of hearing. “I have a very good life here and is well supported without a son,” she told reporters and officials.

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