Because of a historic preference for male heirs, some countries still put a serious premium on producing a son (despite the obvious fact that it takes a woman to create those sons, but that;s for another article). In China, where families are limited to one child, this preference for male offspring is actually becoming a serious problem - the country simply has too many men and not enough women.

The shortage of girls has serious implications for China's economic and social future, because there won't be enough women for each man to marry and start a family of his own. "China will face a growing number of young men who will never marry due to the country's one-child policy, which has resulted in a reported birth ratio of almost 120 boys for every 100 girls," explains Nicholas Eberstadt in his essay, The Demographic Future. "By 2030, projections suggest that more than 25 percent of Chinese men in their late 30s will never have married." The problem will also be most likely to affect poor and rural men, who will have trouble competing with educated, city guys for brides. So while all those families may have wanted sons, they failed to think through the long-term effects of their decision - meaning that at least one-fourth of them may never have grandchildren. Hopefully, the culture will rethink that whole " boys-are-better" thing.