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In a few generations there will be a serious population drop-off. Historically, the ancient world was the same way. Poorer families fed boys and not girls. Instead of aborting female fetuses, they abandoned girl babies in the wilderness. And when there were too many males that made it to adulthood, wars would break out, bringing the population back in sync.
The Spartans were more enlightened, they valued strong women and strong men. In order to bear strong, healthy children, there must be a strong, healthy mother.
The Athenians, for all the talk about being the cradle of democracy, were no better than the prevailing traditions. Feed the men first. then the boys, if there's anything left over, feed the pregnant and nursing women, then finally the rest of the women and girls. Malnourished women don't bear strong, healthy children, and often can't get pregnant at all.
Nowadays, you've got abortion and sex selection techniques (not 100% effective) and most people when there is a choice to be made will choose to have a son and not a daughter. Even in the supposedly enlightened USA. Even when studies were done and the survey takers refused to allow "either sex as long as it's healthy" as an answer. They pressed. The number of "As long as it's healthy" became "OK, a boy" significantly more than 50% of the time. (I read about this in the mid-80's and it may have changed. I certainly hope so. I remember this survey in particular because my own family is the same way. My sister was pregnant with Kid #2. She already had a son, and my mother was exclaiming in front of all of her granddaughters and her three daughters, myself included: "I Loooooooove little boys!" I said: "You love girls, too, right?" I was a smartass teenager acutely aware of sexism in society.)
In the 80s, the world's human population was about 52% female. Now we're at 50%. Give or take a few decimal places. Given all this, I expect that the world's population will shift to 48% female in about 20 years.
There is a book I read called "Too Many Women" about what happens when the population gets skewed too far in any direction. I found it chilling. In either case, women balance on the edge of a sword and any major disruption in the world has a good chance of erasing the gains we fought so hard for and won. Look at Afghanistan and Iraq if you want a current, real world example. James Tiptree Jr (aka Alice Sheldon) wrote a short story on this theme, "The Women Men Don't See".
Lesson for all of us: Value the women as well as the men. Failure to di so will lead to misery on a number of fronts and not just for the women.
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