NEW global modelling of birth sex ratios has found out that the long-term global stability is at risk due to 'cultural preferences for boys in certain countries, The Times reported.
The study also revealed that men are set to dramatically outnumber women in the coming decades.
The study, published in the journal BMJ Global Health, has found that prenatal sex selection has helped skew the sex ratio at birth in favour of boys in several countries from southeast Europe to southeast Asia since the 1970s.
Researchers have warned that nations with a skewed sex ratio at birth are set to “lose” another 4.7 million girls by 2030 — a figure that could reach 22 million by 2100, The Times report added.
They added that the change will create a surplus of young men in more than a third of the world’s population, with unknown social and economic impacts.
“Fewer than expected females in a population could result in elevated levels of antisocial behaviour and violence, and may ultimately affect long-term stability and social sustainable development," Dr Fengqing Chao, from King Abdullah University in Saudi Arabia, and lead author of the study, told the newspaper.
“This calls for broader legal frameworks to ensure gender equality.”
The projections were based on a database of 3.26 billion birth records from 204 countries from 1970 to 2020.
Researchers also studied the experience of countries facing skewed sex ratios at birth before 2021, such as China and India, which have the highest number of annual births.
According to them, Pakistan, Nigeria and other sub-Saharan countries are expected to follow this trend in coming years.
The sex ratio at birth in such countries is likely to stabilise and then decline within 20 years.
Reducing sex selection is a major part of the UN’s sustainable development goals.
Michael Gove
Jeremy Hunt