Despite worrying imbalances in the number of male and female Chinese newborns in rural areas, the overall sex ratio of the country's younger population is "generally normal", a national report concluded.

The report, released by the China Youth and Children Research Center and Beijing's Renmin University of China recently, said the proportion of young males to their female counterparts had fluctuated between 99:100 and 105:100 since 2000.

It indicated that the ratio of 14-29-year-old males to the same female cohort had declined from 105.7:100 in 2000 to 100.2:100 in 2005.

During those years, the ratio for the 14 to 35 age group dropped from 105:100 to 99.2:100.

Liu Junyan, who was in charge of the report based on a national census sample carried out on one percent of the total population in 2005, said that the sex ratio for those born in the 1970s and 80s was "relatively normal".

But the report found a dramatic increase in the number of males among the rural youth population compared to the urban sample, which decreased during the five-year period.

Liu said tighter family planning policies since 1980 had produced a stronger preference for boys in rural areas where the belief that only boys perpetuate the family bloodline is widely held.

"Before the family planning policy was implemented in 1979, people would have more children to increase the chance of having boys, which was a natural selection that did not damage a balanced biological development by sex," he said.

After state policy changed to encourage families to have just one child, some parents still continued to have numerous babies until a boy was born.

They would simply defy the law and pay fines, Li said, noting that this situation did not affect the sex ratio.

Serious gender imbalances occurred after the late 1980s when parents began utilizing B-ultrasound technologies as a sex-selection tool.

Many Chinese chose to abort female fetuses after mothers had ultrasounds. Statistics show that 119 boys were born for every 100 girls with the trend more pronounced in provinces such as Jiangxi, Guangdong, Anhui and Henan, where the ratio has reached as high as 130:100 in some areas.

Although sex selection for non-medical purposes is banned under the Population and Family Planning Law and the Law on Maternal and Infant Health, there are currently no laws banning abortions.

Currently the State Council is working on an enforcement regulation to ban sex-selection abortions to adress imbalances.

(Xinhua News Agency and China Daily December 26, 2007)