Abstract
China is and will be characterized by a large number of men who are unable to marry: these men are often referred to as "bare branches." In this paper we define the bare branch family and divide its life cycle into three stages: the unmarried co-resident with both parents, co-resident with a surviving parent, and living alone. Using life tables and probability methods, we find that up to age 60, the bare branch male faces cumulative probabilities of 0.8 and 0.6, for his father's and mother's death, respectively. The definition of the age at which bare branch status is initialized influences the length of these stages. As the childbearing age of parents increases, the age of a bare branch at the death of his parents decreases, and the duration of his living alone lengthens. An increase in the mother's childbearing age, holding that of the father constant, shortens the stage of co-residence with both parents, and lengthens the stage of living alone.
Highlights
In the early 1970s, China’s government launched the so-called “later, longer, fewer” population policy, aimed at controlling the birth rate and population growth
In a society with such a strong son preference and the concomitant unfavorable social status of females, when gender and number of children were in conflict, people turned to sex-selective abortion to ensure at least one son
The probability P m that a bare branch outlives his father is the probability that he survives t years from the age at which he became a bare branch, and that his father dies at exactly t years, summed over all values of t, which can be written as
Summary
In the early 1970s, China’s government launched the so-called “later, longer, fewer” population policy, aimed at controlling the birth rate and population growth. With stringent implementation of this policy, together with the widespread availability of ultrasound B machines, Jiang et al.: The life cycle of bare branch families in China—A simulation study. In 2000, the sex ratio at birth in those “1.5 children policy” areas, where a second child was permitted if the first was a girl, was 124.7, namely, 15.7 percentage points higher than that in two-children areas, where it was 109.0—clearly indicating that sex-selective abortion was being practiced (Gu et al 2007). A higher than normal sex ratio at birth and excess female child mortality result in a large number of missing females and an imbalance in the sex structure of the total population. Single males who are unable to find brides are termed bare branches (Hudson and den Boer 2004; Jiang and Li 2009)
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