韩国是如何学会善待女婴的

Prizing daughters
千金小姐

How South Korea learned to love baby girls
韩国是如何学会善待女婴的

Aborting girls simply because they are girls has become unthinkable
只是因为怀了女儿而堕胎已经变得不可思议

“I CRIED when I heard,” writes one blogger, recalling the moment she learned that her baby was a boy. Those were bitter tears. The woman was “so envious” of a mother who had just given birth to a daughter. She was not at all unusual. South Koreans of reproductive age now prefer girls to boys (see chart). They have created a new term, “ddalbabo”—“daughter crazy”—for men who go loopy over their female offspring.
在回忆她得知自己的孩子是男孩的那一刻时，一位博主写到“我在听到此消息时大哭一场”。那是痛苦的眼泪。这位女士“非常羡慕”一位刚刚生下一个女儿的母亲。她并非是个例。韩国产妇当下更喜欢女孩而不是男孩。她们创造了一个新词--“女儿热”--来形容那些对女儿欣喜若狂的父亲们。

Until the early 20th century failure to bear a son was grounds for divorce. Koreans greatly preferred boys, who could not only support their parents financially but also carry out ancestral rites. When ultrasound technology became widespread in the 1980s, many South Koreans used it to detect female fetuses and then have them aborted. Sex ratios became skewed. In 1992 twice as many fourth babies were boys as were girls.
直到20世纪初期，没有生育儿子还是男女双方离婚的原因。韩国人非常喜欢男孩，因为男孩不仅可以在经济上帮助父母，而且还能继承祖业。20世纪80年代，超声波技术广泛应用，许多韩国人用来性别鉴定，并将女婴堕胎。性别比例开始失调。1992年，第4胎为儿子的比例是第4胎为女儿的2倍。

In response to these trends the South Korean government made it illegal for doctors to reveal the sex of a fetus. It produced pro-girl slogans: “There is no envy for ten sons when you have one well-raised daughter.”
针对这种趋势，韩国政府规定，医生透露胎儿性别违法，并制作亲女孩的标语：“有1位有教养的女儿，不必羡慕10位儿子。”

That may have helped, but not as much as economic change. Following the Asian financial crisis of 1997, many women took part-time jobs to supplement the family income. Parents noticed, and began to invest more heavily in educating girls. In 2015 three-quarters of South Korean female secondary-schoolers went to university, compared with two-thirds of their male peers.
这或许有所帮助，但没有经济带来的变化更大。随着1997年亚洲金融危机的到来，许多妇女从事兼职工作来补贴家用。家长们注意到并开始在教育女孩上投资巨资。2015年，有3/4的韩国高中女生进入大学，而高中男生只有2/3.

Aborting girls simply because they are girls has become so unthinkable that the law has been relaxed. Since 2009 expectant parents have been allowed to know the sex of their baby after 32 weeks’ gestation. Many will have found out beforefrom doctors who trust that parents’ attitudes have changed.只是因为怀了女儿而堕胎，这已经变得太不可思议，法律随后开始松动。自2009年，当胎儿在孕达到32周后，满怀期待的父母已允许获知婴儿的性别。很多人此前已从医生那里知晓了结果，而医生也相信孩子家长的态度已经转变。

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