Do high numbers of young men destabilize societies?

There's been quite a bit of speculation, and some studies, that societies with proportionally higher numbers of men are destabilized, with more violence, in particular.

This study, if it is accurate, would indicate that perhaps the opposite is true.

See: "More Than A Few Good Men"
http://phys.org/news/2016-08-good-men-counterintuitive-outcomes-gender.html

"Male abundance is particularly worrisome to social scientists because criminological studies consistently find that men are predominantly both the perpetrators and victims of violence. Additionally, men, in general, are typically more aggressive, competitive and prone to risky behavior than women, leading to the prediction that unmarried men destabilize both families and societies. A 2004 book, "Bare Branches," (the term referring to excess unmarried men in Chinese culture) highlighted the potential dangers of such a demographic imbalance in both China and India due to the cultural practice of son preference. "Bare branches theory" became the prevailing paradigm supporting the association between male excess and family and social instability."

"The study, published today in PLOS ONE by anthropologists Ryan Schacht and Karen Kramer, finds instead that surpluses of men are associated with higher levels of marriage, relationship commitment and paternal involvement, a contrast to prevailing theories that an abundance of single men lead to outcomes of crime, violence and broken homes."

""While unbalanced sex ratios are an important source of family instability and social insecurity, it is increasingly being shown that much of our concern should be reoriented to populations with too many women.""

"The reason, Schacht believes, may lie in an economic theory of mate selection, rooted in the law of supply and demand. "If you are the relatively rare sex, you can be more demanding of a potential partner. You can be choosier, and of the partner you choose, you can be more demanding of what you want in a relationship." When faced with an abundance of women, men's "choosiness" may manifest through a preference for multiple partners and short-term, uncommitted relationships."

"The results may appear to be paradoxical. "You get more unmarried men when there are fewer of them," Schacht says. "Men may be less interested in committed relationships when they are relatively rare and partners are abundant. Men may be less interested in settling down with a single partner when there are multiple options available." He is also quick to point out that the negative outcomes associated with female-biased counties are probably not driven by the behavior of the women in those counties. "It's not the excess women who are driving the elevated levels of instability," he says. "It's more likely to be from the relatively high proportion of unmarried men."

I find this pretty persuasive.

Interesting premise. Though to my understanding, actually in china society in general is rather old, facing shortage of young people. Experience and wisdom of old superseding aggression and stupidity of young. In this case China should be more peaceful and stable compared to Vietnam or Nigeria. However it is hard to figure out the full story in countries run by strong hand of dictatorial power.
We can observe that Europe and Japan are getting older too, and becoming more and more peaceful with time. Perhaps there is something to it.

if this is the peaceful society we are moving to, I don't think it is a good evolution



but maybe it is unevitable

anyway, sex is an important driving source in society

bicicleur said:

anyway, sex is an important driving source in society

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You want the motive for a crime, it's either that or money most of the time.

As for our aging populations, it's inevitable when, as in Italy, the thought of having more than one child fills people with horror.

In terms of the study, I always thought that increasing the number of the women would civilize the society more, but it seems it's exactly the opposite. Since in that situation the women want to be "chosen" by the scarcer men, they're willing to put up with the non-commitment and the worse behavior. When women are scarcer then men, the men have to "walk the line" to get a woman. Makes sense if you think it through.

"Walk The Line"-The Great Johnny Cash

A clip from the movie: "You Can't Walk No Line"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_vNELv85n8

The song with lyrics:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H80uOUTZq0U

Boer (2004) argued that the surplus male population in Asia's largest countries such as China and India threatens domestic stability and international security. High male-to-female ratios often trigger domestic and international violence and most violent crime is committed by young unmarried males, who lack stable social bonds. Sex-selective abortion and female infanticide still practised in these countries are responsible for creating young surplus males. The situation is quite different in Japan, where women outnumber men by 3,479,000. The population of Japan in 2013 was 61,909,000 men and 65,388,000 women, which may have something to do with the country's relatively low crime rates and pacifist foreign policy, while Chinese society is increasingly unstable with frequent riots caused by the surplus male population. Moreover, China has been creating seven new islets in the South China Sea by piling sand onto reefs, resulting in frequent military confrontations with its Asian neighbours.

"Security demographics" has become a new subfield of Security Studies in recent years, as scholars have begun to envision the security implications of long-term demographic change. This subfield provides important new insight into the problem of population, social stability and conflict, but our research suggests that an additional demographic factor must be taken into account when assessing social stability and security of a state—that of sex ratios. What are the security implications for a population whose males, particularly those of the young adult population, significantly outnumber females? China and India, as well as several other Asian states, are currently undergoing various demographic transitions, one of the most important being the increasingly high sex ratios of young segments of these populations. We argue that internal instability is heightened in nations displaying the high level of exaggerated gender inequality indicated by high sex ratios, leading to an altered security calculus for the state. Possibilities of meaningful democracy and peaceful foreign policy are diminished as a result. The high sex ratios in China and India in particular have implications for the long-term security of these nations and the Asian region more broadly.

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ThirdTerm said:

Boer (2004) argued that the surplus male population in Asia's largest countries such as China and India threatens domestic stability and international security. High male-to-female ratios often trigger domestic and international violence and most violent crime is committed by young unmarried males, who lack stable social bonds. Sex-selective abortion and female infanticide still practised in these countries are responsible for creating young surplus males. The situation is quite different in Japan, where women outnumber men by 3,479,000. The population of Japan in 2013 was 61,909,000 men and 65,388,000 women, which may have something to do with the country's relatively low crime rates and pacifist foreign policy, while Chinese society is increasingly unstable with frequent riots caused by the surplus male population. Moreover, China has been creating seven new islets in the South China Sea by piling sand onto reefs, resulting in frequent military confrontations with its Asian neighbours.

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Yes, that's what the authors of this paper referenced. What they're saying is that based on their research, that shouldn't be a concern.

I guess we'll find out if they're correct, although in a dictatorial,controlled system like China's the results may be skewed a bit.

China may be becoming more violent, Japan is simply dying of old age.
Japanese people live very much acording to tradition. Everybody obeys the rules but nobody takes initiative or dares to take drastic decisions. The individual hides in the mass.
I don't think that is any better than what is happening in China. On the contrary.

bicicleur said:

China may be becoming more violent, Japan is simply dying of old age.
Japanese people live very much acording to tradition. Everybody obeys the rules but nobody takes initiative or dares to take drastic decisions. The individual hides in the mass.
I don't think that is any better than what is happening in China. On the contrary.

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China may be becoming more aggressive in terms of its foreign poli, but those decisions are being made by men in their seventies if not older, so I don't see how this validates or invalidates the argument that all these surplus men in the population because of the one child policy leads to violence. Does anyone know if "domestic" violence, i.e. robbery, assault, rape etc. are on the increase in China? That might give some indication whether Boer et al are correct, or if this paper is correct.

As for Japan, the population is very skewed toward women, which under the model in the paper in the OP, should lead to violence, but they're a very law abiding people domestically. As for them being an "old" population, do you mean that their birth rate is low and so they are an aging population? It's true that populations that skew "old" are less violent, because there are fewer young men who commit crimes. The fact that the Japanese are stereotypically said not to be very innovation or creative is another issue entirely, isn't it?

well I think the study is to limited
high or low numbers of young men may influence violence in a society, but surely it is far from the only factor
so high or low numbers of young men may have a limited influence on violence
if we would have a lot of young average southeast Asian or Chinese men in Europe, their influence would be much less then these adventourers coming from North-Africa, Somalia, Iraq or Afghanistan that are coming in today

as for Japan, the population is getting grey indeed
but it is not only that
the population as a whole acts like old people, folowing old habits and not taking new initiatives
that is the impression I got when I had Japanese customers visiting my place, and this picture was confirmed when I visited them in Japan
Japanese are very traditional because they want to conform to rules and not take individual initiatives
IMO that is not very promising for the future of Japan

I believe every society still needs a certain amount of testosteron. To much of it is no good either.
I think even Europe is a bit low on testosteron right now.

I agree that it's more complicated than just the gender ratio in a country, as I alluded to when I said that in a totalitarian country like China even the young men might be cowed. Like a lot of these social science studies they generalize from a western industrialized society to all societies, and they shouldn't do that.

As to this...

"if we would have a lot of young average southeast Asian or Chinese men in Europe, their influence would be much less then these adventourers coming from North-Africa, Somalia, Iraq or Afghanistan that are coming in today."

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That might or might not turn out to be the case, but you have no way of knowing that. I can tell you that in areas like New York and San Francisco where there are big concentrations of young, unmarried Chinese men there's a lot of organized crime and gang warfare.

Angela said:

I agree that it's more complicated than just the gender ratio in a country, as I alluded to when I said that in a totalitarian country like China even the young men might be cowed. Like a lot of these social science studies they generalize from a western industrialized society to all societies, and they shouldn't do that.

As to this...


That might or might not turn out to be the case, but you have no way of knowing that. I can tell you that in areas like New York and San Francisco where there are big concentrations of young, unmarried Chinese men there's a lot of organized crime and gang warfare.

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here it is striking that always the same immigrants with the same background create trouble
they live in ghettos and stick together in their own community
we never have problems with far easterners
maybe it is another class of people that arrives here
they are more enterpreneurial and individualistic, they don't stick in ghettos
and there are fewer of them indeed
we don't have the concentrations like in New York or SF

Societies with high rates of young tend to be of African, Latin American and Middle Eastern. As education and knowledge develops the need to give birth for more than 2 child seems unnecessary, as Western societies prefer individualism over collectivism. Individualistic beings prefer freedom kids require responsibility and time to take with them.
Normally a man living in the suburbs works 8-12 hours a day, he barely has more energy&time after work and most likely he'd like to spend the rest of his days to regenerate for the next day. A kid seems to bring struggles in the Capitalist society, while societies whom live on their own get used to cooperative work and they learned that working together brings their life further.

The more educated a woman is the less femininity she has as working require left brained thinking and women sooner start to think and behave the same as men. This is what i experience based on my own female family members. They dress less feminine, has a rather masculine mannerism and think the same rationally as men do.
In the past the main job for women were to raise a kid and keep the family together, while the men protected the family and brought the food home. This society with the appear of feminism has failed to survive and limited only on non Westernized nations as the Middle East and parts of Africa.