18/06/2026
There are slightly more men than women on Earth.
That sounds like a harmless demographic fact until you ask why.
Nature does play a role. Around the world, slightly more boys are born than girls — usually about 105 boys for every 100 girls. Biologists have long understood this as part of the natural human pattern, especially because males tend to die at higher rates across life. In older age groups, women often outnumber men dramatically.
But the global imbalance is not just nature.
It is also history.
For decades, some of the world’s largest populations have carried a brutal preference for sons. In China and India especially, old ideas about inheritance, family lineage, dowry, labor, elder care, and social status made boys seem like assets and girls seem like burdens. Then modern technology arrived. Ultrasound made it possible to know the s*x of a fetus before birth. Smaller family sizes made every pregnancy feel more consequential. And in too many cases, daughters were never allowed to be born.
Demographers call them “missing women” or “missing girls.”
It is a cold phrase for a horrifying reality: girls missing from the world because of s*x-selective abortion, neglect, infanticide, or unequal care.
This is not about blaming every family, every country, or every tradition. It is about naming what happens when a society teaches people that a son carries the name, the property, the prayers, the security — and a daughter carries the cost.
The numbers are staggering. The United Nations Population Fund has estimated that more than 140 million girls are missing worldwide because of son preference and gender-biased s*x selection.
That means the question is not simply: are there more men or women in the world?
The deeper question is: how many women should be here, but are not?
Because if China, India, and other son-preferring societies had not spent generations undervaluing daughters, the global s*x balance might look very different today. Women live longer. In many older populations, they already outnumber men.
But millions of girls were removed from the count before they ever had a chance to enter it.
That is the part of the statistic we should not say quietly.