薮下研究室

Reading Drill No.8

　However, population scholars aren’t so sure.  Among them is Peng Xizhe, Dean of Social Development and Public Policy at Fudan University.  “The major policymakers are only concerned about the total number of the population,” he says.  “But now China’s population has become so complicated.  On the one hand, the number is still growing.  We have a very rapidly aging population.  And we have the issue of people moving between the countryside and the cities.  We also face the problem of a rather odd sex ratio at birth.” Current figures show 119 baby boys are born in China for every 100 girls―far above the normal human ratio of between 103 and 107 boys per 100 girls―because of the traditional favor for boys and the ability to get an abortion.  This odd sex ratio means that little Lulu, along with as many as 40 million other young men, might not find a wife.
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