Why daughters are better than sons

By Tiara Lin Source:Global Times Published: 2014-10-12 19:33:01

Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

 

When my parents got married in 1970s, the only things my mother received for a dowry were a sewing machine and a bicycle. These days, a man is expected to provide a house and a car in order to acquire a wife - at least according to 70 percent of more than 50,000 responses to the 2011 Chinese Marriage Situation Survey Report. Given how things have changed, my mother will bitterly complain every now and then about how "cheap" she was.

In truth, my mother has little to complain about. Even though she was married off for "cheap," she will be able to reap the rewards of a much higher dowry through marrying me off. If I marry a Chinese man, I can expect to bring home an apartment, a car and thousands of yuan to sweeten the deal. The exact figure will depend on how much my future husband thinks I am "worth."

So whenever my mother berates me for already being in my 30s and still being single, I reply that it is because I keep falling in love with men who have neither an apartment nor a car.

Although sons have traditionally been favored over daughters in China, more and more people are starting to realize that in this day and age, having a daughter is a better deal. Studies have found that families who have a son are more likely to be "unhappy" because the parents have to work harder to provide the things that are expected of a dowry. An apartment in Chinese city can easily cost more than 10 times higher than a man's annual income. It thus falls to the parents to bear the cost of buying an apartment for their son if they want him to have a better chance of finding a wife.

My landlord in Beijing owns two apartments, one to live in, and one to rent. The one he rents out is located along the Third Ring Road. With two bedrooms and a total area of 60 square meters, the rent for the apartment is 6,000 yuan ($1,000) per month. He told me that he is renting out the apartment in order to save money for when his son needs to get married.

I asked how old his son is.

"Oh, he is five," my landlord replied.

It might come as a surprise to non-Chinese readers that most Chinese parents do not see needing to buy an apartment for their child as an unreasonable burden or sacrifice. Young men in their 20s whose parents are unable to afford an apartment will often turn to their friends for help. Since graduating from university in 2005, I have been asked on at least five different occasions if I would be willing to lend money to a friend so they could afford to buy an apartment.

The economy of marriage has flipped the traditional cultural preference of boys over girls in China. When China relaxed the family-planning policy this year to allow some families to have a second child, many of my friends said they would likely not take advantage. Their main concern is the high cost of having a second child, especially if it is a boy.

One of them even joked, "Well, I guess it would be okay if he was gay. That way, I'd save a lot of money!"

This article was published on the Global Times Metropolitan section Two Cents page, a space for reader submissions, including opinion, humor and satire. The ideas expressed are those of the author alone, and do not represent the position of the Global Times.



Posted in: Twocents-Opinion

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