I've heard a few of my friends tell me that during WW2, Britain lost soooo many men to the war, that even today, there is a major difference in the ratio of males to females. There are something like 3 females for every male in Britain.

Is this true?

You mean WWI? Surely its evened out after nearly 90 years.

The US south lost over 25% of its male population during the Civil War and their isn't a major difference between males and females here today. And plus I would think only in countries like Paraguay were over 80% of the male population was lost in the Triple Alliance War would their be a great male/female ratio difference today.

There is a lack of beautiful women in Britain, though... :D ;) :p

No, there isn't. It's about 50-50, with perhaps slightly more men than women.

EDIT- Gender ratios

At birth: 1.05 m/f , 0-14: 1.05 m/f , 15-64: 1.02 m/f , 65+: 0.74 m/f
Total population: 0.98 m/f
Source (http://www.gesource.ac.uk/worldguide/html/1053_people.html)

Population: 59,778,002 (July 2002 est.)
Age structure: 0-14 years: 18.7% (male 5,732,385; female 5,443,900)
15-64 years: 65.5% (male 19,803,478; female 19,381,734)
65 years and over: 15.8% (male 3,931,463; female 5,485,042) (2002 est.)

Sex ratio: at birth: 1.05 male(s)/female
under 15 years: 1.05 male(s)/female
15-64 years: 1.02 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 0.72 male(s)/female
total population: 0.97 male(s)/female (2002 est.)

Source (http://www.eu-cu.com/uk.htm)

It seems about equal to me.

How could it possibly be true? A moment's reflection would disprove it. Even if it were true that there were far fewer men immediately after the war, it would hold only for that generation. It's not like having more women around than men would mean that more girls would be born than boys. So the most you could expect now would be a gender imbalance in those over 80.

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Bugfatty300
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The US south lost over 25% of its male population during the Civil War and their isn't a major difference between males and females here today. And plus I would think only in countries like Paraguay were over 80% of the male population was lost in the Triple Alliance War would their be a great male/female ratio difference today.
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The War of the Triple Alliance was in the 1870s. It wouldn't affect male-female ratios today. Neither would the Chaco War of the 1930s.

All that a shortage of one gender would do is slow the population growth, it has nothing to do with how many boys/girls are born in the future...

Maybe you mistaken a bit. Difference between English and non-English population) As far as I know there are whole parts of cities today where no-one can speak english.

All that a shortage of one gender would do is slow the population growth, it has nothing to do with how many boys/girls are born in the future...
Actually, shortages of men don't do much to population growth.

Actually, shortages of men don't do much to population growth.

Actually it does slow it down somewhat for monogamous human populations. For polygamous or polyamorous populations it doesn't matter that much like you said because one male can intercourse sexually with multiple females (but even here if the shortage is extreme then it would still slow it down somewhat like if the ratio is 5 to 1 and the society only allows 4 wives)

Actually, shortages of men don't do much to population growth.

Yes it does, One male can only father so many children. Sure, single mothers are amazing, but some help with it never hurt either.

And with the 'one woman man' thing in western soceity, it would probably hurt even more.

I've heard a few of my friends tell me that during WW2, Britain lost soooo many men to the war, that even today, there is a major difference in the ratio of males to females. There are something like 3 females for every male in Britain.

Is this true?

Maybe you mean WWI, because In WW2, even the United States suffered more casualties than Britain.

If that really did happen though, imagine what it's like in Russia, Ukraine, etc. where they lost 25 million people. :wow:

Men were in short supply in the Ukraine post WW2. The soviets had state provided daycare though and there wasn't to much shame if an unmarried women had a child- even if the father was already married.

I've heard a few of my friends tell me that during WW2, Britain lost soooo many men to the war, that even today, there is a major difference in the ratio of males to females. There are something like 3 females for every male in Britain.

Is this true?

I'm moving :lol: . So they shouldn't call it the Isle of Man anymore?

It can be true in certain University towns at certain times of the year - male students (the minority) tend to go home to Mummy while female students get jobs and stick around.

So summer and winter breaks it just seems that there's a lot more girls than boys. Suits me just fine thanks. ;)

As a slight tangent: Remember this being posted? Check the notes.
"Faster"

Increasing the German birthrate was a top Nazi priority, even as Hitler sent more young men off to war. The Nazis instituted programs glorifying motherhood, providing financial incentives for those with large families, even encouraging "Aryan"-looking young women to bear children out of wedlock.

http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/swann/herblock/dove.html

http://img250.imageshack.us/img250/5315/birthrate6pd.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

I'm not aware of any such other programmes being introduced elsewhere in Europe during WW2, but I'd be surprised if there wasn't some kind of government incentive to increase the birth rate. Anyone got details on this?

Maybe you mistaken a bit. Difference between English and non-English population) As far as I know there are whole parts of cities today where no-one can speak english.

Huuuuuuuuuuuuuuge exaggeration there. You've never been to England, I'll wager.

As a slight tangent: Remember this being posted? Check the notes.


http://img250.imageshack.us/img250/5315/birthrate6pd.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

I'm not aware of any such other programmes being introduced elsewhere in Europe during WW2, but I'd be surprised if there wasn't some kind of government incentive to increase the birth rate. Anyone got details on this?
France has had a negative birth rate since around 1850. Growth has been sustained through imigration ever since.

So already back in the 19th c. the Republic did institute special medals, etc. for women who had done their patriotic duty and produced a bunch of children. France always went for quantity in these matters. (I have always liked how illegitimate children are refered to as "natural children" in French.:) )

Generally eugenics was pretty popular in the protestant countries of Europe in the 20-30's.
If they had a healthy demographic surplus (most did) they were usually interested in improving "quality" and a lot less interested in quantity.

Thanks Verbose! Fascinating stuff. Any more of that and I'm purring like a kitty, well not quite, but I'd love to hear more. :)

Love the point about the French 'illegitimate / natural children'. Didn't know that.

Les Petits Enfants du Siècle, by Christiane Rochefort, is a brilliant satirical swipe at the kind of families and society that were engendered by France's attempts to encourage people to have more children.

It's an interesting story here in Singapore. After independence in 1965, the government did its best to encourage people not to have children, fearing that overpopulation could wreck the country. By the 1980s, the policy had worked so well that the government was now worried that it didn't have enough people. So they started coming up with incentives for people to have lots of children - but only if they were university graduates, professionals, and other "desirable" classes! The old slogan was "Stop at Two", but in 1986 it changed to "Have Three or More, if You can Afford it". Today, the government offers match-making services to the educated classes, in the hope that if people with degrees breed together they will produce clever babies.

So here it's about quantity *and* quality, which presumably goes some way towards explaining why Singapore, like most countries with a greying population, doesn't solve the problem by the simple expedient of relaxing immigration controls.