Lianyungang, a booming port city, has Chinas most extreme gender ratio for children under four: 163 boys for every 100 girls. These numbers dont seem terribly grim, but in ten years, the skewed sex ratio will pose a colossal challenge. By the time those children reach adulthood, their generation will have twenty-four million more men than women. The prognosis for Chinas neighbors is no less bleak: Asia now has 163 million females missing from its population. Gender imbalance reaches far beyond Asia, affecting Georgia, Eastern Europe, and cities in the U. S. where there are significant immigrant populations. The world, therefore, is becoming increasingly male, and this mismatch is likely to create profound social upheaval. Historically, eras in which there have been an excess of men have produced periods of violent conflict and instability. Mara Hvistendahl has written a stunning, impeccably-researched book that does not flinch from examining not only the consequences of the misbegotten policies of sex selection but Western complicity with them.

Reviews

"Kirkus Review," April 15, 2011
"A hard-hitting, eye-opening study that not only paints a dire future of a world without girls but traces the West's role in propagating sex selection.... Hvistendahl's important, even-handed expose considers all sides of the argument and deserves careful attention and study."

Anne-Marie Slaughter, Bert G. Kerstetter University Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Princeton University
""Unnatural Selection" is an important book and a fascinating read. Mara Hvistendahl is a delightful writer: witty, engaging, and acute. But the tale she tells is deeply disturbing. Asia alone is missing 160 million women and girls, a number equal to the entire female population of the United States. According to Hvistendahl, the culprit is less deeply rooted cultural gender bias than rising wealth, elite attitudes, and Western influence and technology. Development, at least for the coming decades, will produce not only fewer children overall, but als