In the wake of the one-child policy of 1979, China experienced an unprecedented rise in the sex ratio at birth (ratio of male to female births). In cohorts born between 1980 and 2000, there were 22 million more men than women. Some 10.4 percent of these additional men will fail to marry, based on simulations presented here that assess how different scenarios for the sex ratio at birth affect the probability of failure to marry in 21st century China. Three consequences of the high sex ratio and large numbers of unmarried men are discussed: the prevalence of prostitution and sexually transmitted infections, the economic and physical well-being of men who fail to marry, and China’s ability to care for its elderly, with a particular focus on elderly males who fail to marry. Several policy options are suggested that could mitigate the negative consequences of the demographic squeeze.

The local average treatment effect (LATE) may differ from the average treatment effect (ATE) when those influenced by the instrument are not representative of the overall population. Heterogeneity in treatment effects may imply that parameter estimates from 2SLS are uninformative regarding the average treatment effect, motivating a search for instruments that affect a larger share of the population. In this paper, I present and estimate a model of home production with heterogeneous costs and benefits to fertility. The results indicate that a sex-preference instrument in Taiwan produces IV estimates closer to the estimated ATE than in the United States, where sex preference is weaker.