Date of Award

Spring 5-2018

Degree Type

Honors College Thesis

Department

Political Science, International Development, and International Affairs

First Advisor

Edward Sayre

Advisor Department

Political Science, International Development, and International Affairs

Abstract

The one child policy enacted by the Chinese government in 1979 has restricted the sizes of Chinese families and led to an abnormal male-dominated sex ratio. Abnormal sex ratios can have a variety of economic consequences that could work together to reduce the general welfare of the regions they exist in. This study aims to evaluate the effect of sex ratios on GRP (gross regional product) and GRP per capita through a series of linear regression models. Data used in this study was collected from the National Bureau of Statistics in China, a Chinese government organization in charge of collecting and logging data from a wide variety of fields. While male dominant regions did tend to exhibit lower GRP and GRP per capita, changes in sex ratio within regions showed no statistically significant effect. In models that were run without using year and regional dummies, sex ratio did have a negative effect that was statistically significant on GRP and GRP per capita, though once the dummies were included to isolate the effect of sex ratio on output, this statistical significance no longer existed. However, it should be noted these abnormal sex ratios may still be influencing other economic factors which could indirectly affect output, which would have been missed in the models run for this study.

Download

Share

COinS