The Research on Prisoners Dilemma in Prenatal Sex Determination

Abstract

Inequality in the sex ratio is a significant issue in China. Some illegal sex determination mechanisms that give parents of young children gender information significantly contribute to the sex ratio imbalance. As a result, some parents make prejudiced decisions to abort girls. Regulation of prenatal sex determination by governmental and medical institutions will be challenging due to the high degree of information asymmetry. A few of the governments initiatives have yet to show obvious results. Medical institutions and women of childbearing age automatically cooperate in spite of information asymmetry. The prenatal sex determination regulation model is given a new interpretation in this paper using the game theory analysis method. Additionally, the paper explains the causes of the regulations difficulty and proposes ideas, countermeasures, and solutions. The idea of cooperation contained in game theory is of great significance in resolving interest conflicts and achieving social harmony under the condition of interest differentiation.