Girls, have to give away any property they possess to their husband and are not supposed to take care of their parents in old age. A daughters responsibility to her family ends when she gets married. She moves in with her husband, often in another village or town, and become part of her husband's family and helps care for them. In China there is an expression, "Daughters are like water that splashes out of the family and cannot be gotten back after marriage."
One farmer told the New York Times, “If you have a son he can go out and make money, then the whole family will be secure. If your daughter gets rich that’s a different thing altogether, because the money goes to her husband’s family.”
Boys are regarded as important because they look after property; inherit land; have more opportunities to get ahead in life than daughters; care for parents when they get old; and perform important ceremonial duties when the parents die.
Demographers have found that the boy-to-girl ratio increases the more strictly the one-child policy is enforced. One study of three villages in Shaanxi found that 114 boys to 100 girls were born in 1979 to 1983 when the "one child" policy was introduced; then dropped to 98 to 100 during a lenient period from 1984 to 1987; and soared to 145 to 100 in 1988 to 1993 when the policy was strictly enforced.
Many girls go hungry while food is directed to their brothers. A women with a younger brother told the Los Angeles Times, “My sister and I knew that all the good food went to him—when he was done, then we could eat.”
Many baby girls are simply neglected and die from causes related to poor nutrition or being poorly taken care of when sick.
In villages with easy access to ultrasound machines it is not unusual to find that 75 percent of the children born there are boys.
The suicide rate of women in childbearing years (generally between 15 and 34) has increased considerably since the policy was implemented, especially in smaller Chinese cities. This is believed to be due to pressure to produce a single child, as it is usually desired to have a male child.
According to the Los Angeles Times, many babies put up for adoption had not been abandoned by their parents, but confiscated by family planning officials.
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