Economics professor has solution for China’s millions of bachelors: let them share wives, or even marry each other

With China facing the prospect of 30 million unmarried men by 2020, an economics professor has proposed a solution – allow poor bachelors to share a wife.

Xie Zuoshi, a professor at Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics, said it was a practical way for the nation to deal with the legacy of decades of an abnormally high sex ratio.

China has long had a traditional preference for boys over girls that has, if anything, increased under the one-child policy.

The birth ratio of boys compared with girls has been rising steadily, peaking in 2009 before dropping to 1.16 in 2014. The normal gender ratio at birth for China is between 1.02 to 1.07 boys born for every girl.

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Between 24 million to 34 million more boys than girls were born in the past three decades, and most are unlikely to find wives, at least in China.

“It is a reality that we have so many more men than women. Serious social problems, such as rape and assaults, will happen if men cannot find wives. But it doesn’t have to be like that if they are given choices,” said Xie, who said he saw the problem from an economics point of view.