Zubair F, Dahl E, Sher Shah S, Ahmed M, Brosig B
Clinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Marburg-Süd, Germany.
Hum Reprod. 2007 Feb;22(2):605-9. doi: 10.1093/humrep/del409. Epub 2006 Oct 24.
In its recent report 'Human Reproductive Technologies and the Law', the House of Commons' Select Committee on Science and Technology called for greater efforts to establish the potential demographic impact of sex selection across all sectors of UK society. Given the well-known preference for boys over girls among some communities, there is concern that a readily available service for social sex selection may upset the balance of the sexes. Of particular interest are the gender preferences and the demand for sex selection among Pakistanis.
We conducted a social survey on gender preferences and potential demand for preconception sex selection among 301 pregnant women in Karachi, Pakistan, using a self-report questionnaire consisting of 14 questions.
About 41.5% wish to have a family with an equal number of boys and girls; 3.3% would like to have only boys, 1.0% only girls, 27.6% more boys than girls and 4.3% more girls than boys, and 22.3% stated that they do not care about the sex composition of their family. Whereas 6.3% could imagine employing cytometric sperm separation for social sex selection, 76.1% could not and 17.6% were undecided. About 27.2% felt that social sex selection ought to be legal, 48.8% thought it ought to be illegal and 23.9% were undecided.
Although Pakistani women do show a statistically significant preference for boys over girls, the number of women willing to subject themselves to cytometric sperm separation appears to be too small to cause a severe imbalance of the sexes. However, further research among British citizens of Pakistani origin is needed to establish whether sex selection poses a serious threat to the sex ratio of UK communities.
英国下议院科学技术特别委员会在其近期报告《人类生殖技术与法律》中呼吁加大力度，以确定性别选择对英国社会各阶层可能产生的人口统计学影响。鉴于某些社区中存在众所周知的重男轻女倾向，人们担心社会性别选择服务的轻易可得可能会打破性别平衡。巴基斯坦人的性别偏好和性别选择需求尤其令人关注。
我们在巴基斯坦卡拉奇对301名孕妇进行了一项关于性别偏好和孕前性别选择潜在需求的社会调查，使用了一份包含14个问题的自填问卷。
约41.5%的人希望生育的子女中男孩和女孩数量相等；3.3%的人只想要男孩，1.0%的人只想要女孩，27.6%的人希望男孩比女孩多，4.3%的人希望女孩比男孩多，22.3%的人表示他们不在乎家庭的性别构成。虽然6.3%的人可以想象使用流式细胞仪精子分离技术进行社会性别选择，但76.1%的人无法想象，17.6%的人不确定。约27.2%的人认为社会性别选择应该合法，48.8%的人认为应该非法，23.9%的人不确定。
尽管巴基斯坦女性在统计学上确实表现出重男轻女的倾向，但愿意接受流式细胞仪精子分离技术的女性数量似乎太少，不足以导致严重的性别失衡。然而，需要对英国的巴基斯坦裔公民进行进一步研究，以确定性别选择是否对英国社区的性别比例构成严重威胁。
