Sex Ratios, Entrepreneurship, and Economic Growth in the People's Republic of China
Shang-Jin Wei, Xiaobo Zhang
China experiences an increasingly severe relative surplus of men in the
pre-marital age cohort. The existing literature on its consequences
focuses mostly on negative aspects such as crime. In this paper, we
provide evidence that the imbalance may also stimulate economic growth
by inducing more entrepreneurship and hard work. First, new domestic
private firms – an important engine of growth – are more likely to
emerge from regions with a higher sex ratio imbalance. Second, the
likelihood for parents with a son to be entrepreneurs rises with the
local sex ratio. Third, households with a son in regions with a more
skewed sex ratio demonstrate a greater willingness to accept relatively
dangerous or unpleasant jobs and supply more work days. In contrast, the
labor supply pattern by households with a daughter is unrelated to the
sex ratio. Finally, regional GDP tends to grow faster in provinces with a
higher sex ratio. Since the sex ratio imbalance will become worse in
the near future, this growth effect is likely to persist.
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