Esther Duflo's statistical money shot about too many boys (via Chris Blattman's "Links I Liked") in PRC begs the question: what about the other six-sevenths?

To what extent is the rise in the number of young men responsible for the increase in crime? A recent study by Chinese and American researchers: “Sex ratio and crime: Evidence from China’s one-Child Policy” (by Edlund, Li, Yi, and Zhang) answers this question by comparing the increase in the number of crimes between 1998 and 2004 in regions where the one-child policy was strictly enforced with the same increase in regions where parents were allowed a second child if the first were a girl (where the boy-girl ratio is much closer to normal). They conclude that the one-child policy explains one-seventh of the increase in crime.

I'm not discounting the problem of surplus men causing crime, just asking what the rest of the cause is. There also is a knock-on effect on girls in single-child households, who leave school more often. What about all this change going on in PRC?

one-child policy, china, prc, crime, school drop-outs

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