Bamboozling Births: Newsletter Challenge (October 2020)

A couple can only have 1 son, but several girls....so no....

I am assuming only monogamous married couples are having children and the probability of male and female birth is equal, 50-50. - Here is an example:

Take 1024 couples. 512 have boys, 512 have girls. The 512 with girls then have 256 boys, 256 girls. The 256 with girls have 128 boys, 128 girls, etc...

512g, 512b

256g, 256b

128g, 128b

64g, 64b

32g, 32b

16g, 16b

8g, 8b

4g, 4b

2g, 2b

1g, 1b

New people being born are equal boys and girls. Adding these to the existing women-majority population would drive the ratio closer to 50 - 50.

Would this strategy work to move toward a 50:50 ratio of girls to boys?

Yes.

Actually the odds slightly favor male babies....100-105

Your scenario doesn't apply here as there is an imposed control on only male births not female....a couple could have 10 girls and only 1 boy....no family will have more than 1 boy, but can continue to have girls one after another until a boy pops out, if that even ever happens....

I'm still thinking that the sex ratio of babies born will be the same, no matter who is having them.

I agree the m/f birth ratio will be roughly the same...but what ever is killing off the males prematurely has yet to be dealt with...If the natural birth rate is roughly 50/50 to begin with, and no other changes are made, this strategy won't make any change in the ratio...clearly the problem isn't the male/female birth ratio...

If you read carefully between the lines, they were on the losing side of a terrible war. The war is now over but a huge number of the male soldiers were killed in battle.

Actually, the proclamation would be counterproductive. Children are born 50/50 male/female, thus driving the existing female-dominated M/F ratio closer to 50/50, with or without the proclamation.

By removing those couples who had borne a son from producing more children, the leader would have slowed this natural process.

"A dystopian society is a fictional society that imposes a harmful, oppressive, and miserable existence upon its members. "

It's the very nature of this dystopian society that is resulting in the m/f imbalance...I don't believe the exact mechanisms at work are really that apropos to the point..

Statically speaking Rixter is 100% correct doesn't matter who is having them. The ratio is the ratio. Don't see how that changes. the family's that are blessed with a female will be allowed to roll the die again, with the same chances as anyone else having a child. this is if we are talking specifically on stats. these other influences such as environment, geology, sexual position (barring some ), or moon phase may or may not have an influence, i cannot comment on that, well except for which will be 100% zero chance of pregnancy.

No. The families who beget a girl carry on trying until they get a boy, and then stop. That boy finds a wife, but there are still a lot of surplus girls.

To redress the balance, i know of one family who were trying for a girl. They gave up after 4 boys.

Genetically the first born child is a good indicator of which of the parents has the dominant genes. So those who have a boy first are more likely to produce more boys to contribute the the normal 50:50 ratio. By preventing this the policy would actually make the situation worse. But that's politicians for you, don't think things through!!

Actually, it's not the dominant parent that determines the sex of the child, it's whether the father supplies an X or Y chromosome that combines with the mother's X chromosome. XY = male, XX = female.

Then there's another theory that whoever had it last determines the sex.

You are correct but you can be more correct than you are now. Please read the link which shows that genes determine the how likely a male is to produce sons or daughters

https://www.ncl.ac.uk/press/articles/archive/2015/08/boyorgirlitsinthefathersgenes.html

Although the normal f/m ratio should be 50/50, we have here an imbalance (probably caused by an external factor (pollution, the use of endocrine disrupting chemicals, global warming or any other cause). Let’s say this imbalance is 51/49 (but any other value will give the same final result). Excluding women who will have no child (a small percentage anyway), after having the first child, 49% of them (who have boys) will be forced to stop having more children and only the remaining 51% of them can have a second child. Note that with this first birth the f/m ratio is 51/49. If those 51% will have a second child, again the same f/m ratio of 51/49 will occur. So, forcing the women who had a boy as a first child to stop having children doesn’t change the f/m ratio at all. The same applies to have the third child and so on.

So, the measure is useless in changing the f/m ratio - it will only lead to a population number decline (if 49% of all women can have only one child, this decline will be quite significant).

Good analysis and explanation!

I did the same, but since I had Matlab already running for work purposes, I went with monte carlo :-)

Using a ratio of 105 boys versus 100 girls born, which is commonly encountered on the internet, I calculated how the government rules affected the population. Indeed, the ratio remained the same, just the number of kids declined dramatically, from about 2 kids per household to an average 1.3 kids per household.

Grtz,

Karel

Wrong initial assumption. Institutionalize polygamy. It will most likely form a more peaceful society.

The chances of having a male or female child has a lot to do with the timing of having sex.
If you wait a few days, the chance of having a male is increased.
This is to do with the build-up of sperm.
Those who have a lot or regular sex have a higher chance of conceiving a girl.
I read the book on this some 50 years ago and have correctly predicted the outcome of a child on many occasions.
Everyone somehow thinks I have have some involvement in the situation and others think I am psychic.
But I just read the book. One paragraph on page 120 of a 145 page book provided the explanation.

What you do not say is if the society is starting out male rich and the society (such as areas in India) is trying to even ratio. if that is the case, i guess this is a lottery type way.

I know of some dairy herd breeders that selected bulls for their female offspring ratio. Some are claiming as high as 85% females with money back guarantees on bulls they sell.

If the reproduction ratio were 85 (female) to 15 (male) and the CURRENT population was something less than 85% (female), then the subsequent populations would actually move further away from 50:50. In a monogamous society, such a population would suffer 70% population decline on each generation and deliver itself into the wisps of time.

those "male producing" bulls were bred somehow to produce that outcome. cattle can reproduce in a year.

There is one way this authoritarian edict might tip the population back towards a 50/50 ratio. If the first cycle of births after this edict happens a significantly greater than half of the births are male. (Remember random acts only average out to a predictable value.) After this cycle, much less than half of the women are permitted to have a second pregnancy to make up for a large number of male offspring.

Technically this edict is not really altering the procreation sex ratio. It is making the sex ratio of the first procreation cycle after enforcement a more dominant ratio.

{I have to say this. This eugenics poser disturbs and disgusts me. Too many atrocities have already occurred in the name of making a "better" population by various eugenic methods including this proposed forced sterilization. CR4 and GlobalSpec should be ashamed of itself.}

(1) My mother was one of 13, the last but one was a boy, must have give up when the last was a girl again? FATHER = active labourer.

(2) My wife is the eldest of sever girls, FATHER = active labourer.

(3) SO what determines the offspring, I have two children, a boy and girl?

I have explained the way it works.

PS .

(5) My father was the eldest of 5, three boys two girls, FATHER = Steam truck driver.

(6) I am the eldest of three boys, FATHER = barber.

(7) MAYBE, regarding sperm? personal memory's , Male conceived when the sperm travels horizontal, Female conceived when the sperm travels vertical, something for Colin55 to think about.

(8) Or maybe its just a roll of the dice.

"Or maybe its just a roll of the dice."

OMG now you're postulating an alien race with six different sexes,

Even if you start to consider a society with three distinct sexes the possibilities become very interesting. Sounds like a good idea for a book.