review by Bob Walch

Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls,and the Consequences of a World Full of Men

(PublicAffairs, 336 pages, $26.99) by Mara Hvistendahl

October—2011 “It is only in the past three decades that we have been able to control a baby’s sex with certainty. … What does it mean to tinker with one of evolution’s most fundamental balances?” — Mara Hvistendahl

In the Book Review Unnatural Selection, Beijing-based writer Mara Hvistendahl visited nine countries and talked to mothers, doctors, demographers, trafficked women, mail-order brides and men doomed to bachelorhood as she did the research for this fascinating book. The information she collected, along with other material, helped her piece together the troubling story about the staggering population imbalances that are facing a number of countries.

Hvistendahl tries to explain not only why a world without girls has become a reality in many cultures, but also what the dire consequences of such a situation could be.

Some of the current figures underscore the seriousness of the situation that was brought on by not only sex-selective abortion decisions but also sex determination technology. The natural sex ratio at birth for humans is 105 boys for every 100 girls; anything beyond a ratio of 107 is biologically impossible, scientists tell us. Yet in China a recent census found a sex ratio at birth of 118 boys to every 100 girls. Looking down the road two decades, this ratio — mostly the result of sex-selection abortion and the country’s one-child policy — will mean that millions of Chinese men will be unable to find wives.

The situation isn’t much better in neighboring countries. Thanks to a gender imbalance in India and South Korea, as well as other places, an estimated 160 million females are “missing” from Asia’s population.

A provocative and disturbing book, Unnatural Selection is certainly worth reading and discussing. As the author points out, this is not just a dilemma that faces Asian countries. We are also seeing it much closer to home and the consequences could be just as serious.