Beijing - Chinese parents are being offered cash rewards to give their
newborn children the mother's last name, a report said on Friday, in
an unusual attempt to address the traditional preference for sons.
Women who marry in China keep their own surnames, but their children
almost invariably take the father's name and ensure its continuation
into the next generation.
Now officials in Changfeng county in the eastern province of Anhui
are giving $162 to couples who take part in the "surname reform"
plan, the Jianghuai Morning Post reported.
They hope the move will help to gradually change the common
perception that giving birth to a son is preferable to having a
daughter, it said, and nearly 30 couples have already volunteered.
China suffers from a huge gender imbalance as a result of sex-
selective abortions and the strict family-planning law known as the
one-child policy. Female infanticide and the abandoning of baby girls
have also been reported.
In most countries, males slightly outnumber females, with between 103
and 107 boys born for every 100 girls, but China had nearly 118 male
births for every 100 females in 2012.
In Changfeng county, that ratio has reached nearly 130 boys for every
100 girls, according to the Jianghuai Morning Post.
"Our goal is to promote an idea, for families to give their newborn
child the surname of whoever they want", Gong Cunbing, deputy
director of the county population and family planning committee, told
the paper.
China's has tens of millions more men than women, experts say, one of
the worst distortions in the world.
Many of those men are now unable to find Chinese brides, a
phenomenon that has become a key driver of trafficking of women
from Southeast Asia to China, according to campaign groups.
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