Over the past two decades General Electric Co. (GE) among other companies have introduced numerous ultrasound machines in India and China to provide potential health benefits to billions of people who are afflicted with various painful and life threatening disorders. Due to its portability and relatively low cost, ultrasounds can uniquely be transported to small villages where patients urgently need its care. Villages with no drinking water, infrequent electricity, or muddy roads can receive medical scans for roughly eight dollars, a week’s salary, and determine medical issues.
However, some cultural society, namely in India and China, have utilized ultrasound technology as a way to increase their rates of female feticide. GE has to grapple with the difficult issue: paternal male preferences over female babies. Kalpana Bhavre states that, “ultrasound is the main reason the sex ratio is coming down” because daughters incur a lifetime of paternal debt. Parents must pay dowry payments at marriage while males typically receive dowry. Compared to the dowry debt, eight dollars is nothing.
Because Indian and Chinese boys are widely considered wealth earners during life and lighters of one’s funeral pyre at death an inordinate number of male births and female infanticides will continue, unless urgent action is taken. Male to female sex ratios continue to illustrate the rapid deterioration: 927:1000 boys in 2001, 945:1000 boys in 1991. Only China with 832 girls per 1000 boys illustrates a wider gender gap than India. GE sells three times as many ultrasounds in China relative to India. Furthermore, 90 percent of families in India with two sons do not want any more children, while almost half of parents with two daughters want to have mo...
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...this process, but typically international companies are seen as outsiders and can only play a small part in cultural alterations. For their part, GE can provide funding for governmental programs in exchange to tax incentives. Yet, it is up to the population to change their mindsets.
The problem with widening gender-gaps creates great divides and hinders growth within emerging economies. GE’s ultrasound technology has provided a catalyst for widening that gap. To decrease their role in female feticide GE can utilize many policies like training, education, innovation, and cultural alteration to increase female births. Yet, it is not solely GE’s responsibility. The national government must step in and provide their populations with cultural leaders who espouse gender equality. Thus, for every step GE takes to improve its role the national governments must take two.
The adoption process can take more than one year and cost a family up to $18,000. Couples wait anxiously for the government’s approval, then the government assigns them a baby. Couples are given nothing more than a picture of the baby. They don’t have the child’s medical information, who the parents are, etc. Finally, three days after the arrival in Beijing, the couples get to meet their baby for the first time. Under Chairman Mao in the ‘50s and ‘60s, China’s population exploded. By 1980, Mao’s successors limited families to having only one child. Sometimes, families were allowed to have two. This was the largest human population control effort in human history. China’s population is coming under control, but there are consequences no one intended. Couples feel that they must have a boy because boys often carry on the family name, provide work and they stay with their parents at old age. Possibly, over 100,000 baby girls are abandoned every year. Many of them will end up in an orphanage. Today, 1in 4 children adopted overseas come from China. The babies adopted by Americans are only a fraction of the millions of girls believed to be missing from China’s population. While the number of girls are being giving away, the number of boys are becoming way out of proportion. Today, boys greatly out number girls and its only getting worse. This relates to cultural relativism,
Internationally, issues revolving around the female body and reproduction are extremely controversial. For a woman, her body is a very private matter. At the same time, however, a woman's body and her reproduction rights are the center of attention in many public debates. Several questions regarding women's reproductive rights remain unanswered. How much control do women have over their bodies? What kind of rules can be morally imposed upon women? And who controls the bodies of women? Although the public continues to debate these topics, certain conclusions can been made concerning women and their reproductive rights. An undeniable fact is that government has a large degree of control over female reproductive organs. All around the world, time and time again, several national governments have implemented policies, enacted laws, and denied women control over their reproductive organs. Several governments have crossed the border between intimate and public matters concerning women's reproductive organs, by making laws about contraceptives, abortion, and family planning programs.
The Statue of Liberty is an American icon because it symbolizes freedom, success, and the power of this nation. This image is what the U.S stands for to the outside world. Foreigners strive to move to America because of its wealth and acceptance towards all races and ethnicity. “How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents” recounts the story of how Carlos Garcia, Laura Garcia, and their four girls move from the Dominican Republic to the United States to escape a dictatorship, and establish a new life in flourishing New York City. Many unexpected culture shocks await them in their new country. Although the girls find it difficult to adapt at first, they soon begin to assimilate and Americanize. On the other hand, “The Struggle to Be an All-American Girl” by Elizabeth Wong illustrates the life of an Asian American having to embrace two entirely different cultural identities. Both the Garcia family and Elizabeth Wong's family have to deal with two opposing cultures without losing too much of their heritage. The book and the essay are similar in that characters in each story lose much of their original tradition. However, they are different in that the families move to the states for distinctive reasons, and the cultural preference of “The Struggle to Be an All-American Girl” is more evident than that of “How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents”.
In 1979, China decided to establish a one child policy which states that couples are only allowed to have one child, unless they meet certain exceptions[1].In order to understand what social impacts the one child policy has created in China it important to evaluate the history of this law. China’s decision to implement a Child policy has caused possible corruption, an abuse of women’s rights, has led to high rates of female feticide, has created a gender ratio problem for China, and has led to specific problems associated with both the elderly and younger generation. Finally, an assessment of why China’s one child policy is important to the United States allows for a full evaluation of the policy.
The Bell Smith Personality Assessment was accurate in reflecting my personality. I have taken several personality tests because I know developing strong interpersonal skills enhances personal growth and development. Each test has delivered similar results demonstrating my willingness to work with others, need for organization, focus on emotional content, and search for additional information. According to the Bell Smith assessment, I fall into the categories of member, planner, juggler, empathizer, and researcher. I would challenge the assessment with defining me a planner because I incorporate the juggler traits into my daily activities. Overall, the assessment was not surprising and I would like to continue taking different personality tests to see diverges from previous results.
Promoting Ethical Ultrasound Use in India An Emerging Economy Case Study from GE (January 2009)
Population Council. “World Conference on Women: The Beijing Declaration and the Platform for Action on Women and Health”. Population and Development Review , Vol. 21, No. 4 (Dec., 1995), pp. 907-91. Web. 22 Nov. 2013
Genetic Engineering is harmful because it has produced Gendercide in countries such as China and India. Genetic engineering allows sex selection to become easier. The imbalance between genders continues to rise. Clayton Farris states, “In China the imbalance between sexes was 108 boys to 100 girls in the late 1980s, for the generation of of the early 2000s it was 124 to 100. In some chinese provinces is an unprecedented 130 to 100”(Farris 63).The imbalance between sexes is “unprecedented”. Parents constantly use genetics to get the gender they value. Many parents choose boys in China which leads to the outrageous number of “130 to 100”. Chinese parents value men more than women in their culture. Sex selection gives them the opportunity to get what they want. Their desire sex leads them into Gendercide. Genetic
In this world where people can acquire anything they need or want, we have to wonder, “Is the government controlling us?” Both the governments in A Brave New World and in the United States of America offer birth control pills and have abortion clinics that are available for everyone, thus making birth control pills and abortion operations very easy to acquire. Although both governments offer birth control pills and abortion clinics, A Brave New World’s government requires everyone to take the pills and immediately get an abortion when pregnant. This in turn shows us that A Brave New World’s government is controlling the population and the development of children. China is one of the few countries that currently have control of the development of children. In controlling the development of its children, China is also controlling the population levels. In any country, controlling the amount of children a single family can have can dramatically decrease the population levels. Just by having birth control pills and abortion clinics there for anybody to take advantage of shows that the involvement of either government is already too high.
China's population reaches over 1.2 billion people, which makes up one-fifth of the world’s total population. In retrospect, China’s land mass is similar to that of the United States, but China has 4.5 times more people. However it is no surprise that overpopulation has become a concern for the Chinese government. Due to the rapid population growth, the economy began dwindling causing the poverty level to rise. This, unfortunately, left a plethora of people unemployed. Realizing these issues needed to be fixed, the government took immediate action. Deng Xiaoping, the leader of China, implemented the One Child Policy in 1979. The consequences of this decision was long yet to be discovered. However, though it helped slow the population growth, other problems started to arise. Consequently, the country ended up with over thousands of brutal abortions. The roots of this issue date back hundreds of years, and is still considered a contemporary issuet today. Regardless of what country, what year, what race or gender; people have always held strong feelings about this idea of contraception. Abortion is a form of birth control that is widely known and used. It is a contemporary issue that is notorious for causing grave debates. The conception of birth control is the main perpetrator of China’s abortion epidemic. As birth control laws were being enacted, women were involuntary forced to abort their child in order to sustain normal population numbers. This massive abortion epidemic flooded China as leaders forced one-child policies on the citizens and completely changed the people’s outlook on birth control. This idea of a one-child policy took away many of the peoples freedoms, allowing the government to have one hand ...
Given the high sex ratio in recent China population report, the abnormally excessive male birth exemplifies the persistence of son preference on women’s fertility behavior. Son preference rooted in Chinese agriculture-based economy and historical feudalism, in consistence with the reliance on laborers and continuing the family line. Older people prefer to depend on their sons to get financial and physical support, while daughters are regarded as property of their husband’s family since the day of marriage.
Huen, Yuki W.P. “Policy Response to Declining Birth Rate in Japan: Formation of a ‘Gender-Equal’ Society.” San Francisco State University. online.sfsu.edu, 11 Sep. 2007. Web. 1 Mar. 2014.
“Red is a positive color in Denmark, but represents witchcraft and death in many African countries,” (Understand and heed, 1991, p.1). Simple understandings, such as this one, can make the difference in a business’ success or failure in a foreign country. Various countries have different customs and beliefs that need to be accustomed to when business are to be successful. American businesses especially have difficulties with this concept. “At times in the past, Americans have not had a good track record of being sensitive to cultural distinctions,” (Understand and heed, 1991, p.3). Perhaps this is because America is made up of so many different cultures that American people have become so used to easily adjusting to each other’s differences that they forget that other cultures are not as flexible. Today, more American’s are becoming more sensitive to the differences of other cultures. This sensitivity and understanding has come with a price, after a long string of business failures. It is not until a business fails miserably in another country that they see the adjustments that should have been made in order for their success to be a possibility. With an understanding and sensitivity to the customs and beliefs of other cultures, it is possible for successful businesses that have originated in western cultures to also be successful in foreign countries as well.
Many people are needed to reap a field when the crops are ready. Therefore, many children must be born. The birth rates in third world cultures are very high as a result. Males are obviously preferred. Because of the...
Especially in poor countries, it is a lot harder for women to jump into the workforce, and even harder for a poor country to become industrialized. For example, in Bangladesh, one of the world's poorest countries, birth rates have decreased from seven children per family to only 5.5. This is largely because forty percent of Bangladesh's women now take part in some form of family planning. The New International Economic Order, known as the NIEO, has also taken steps to decrease the amount of poverty in the world and hopefully eliminate the large gap between the rich and the poor in the world.