80:20 Female to Male

Why the world would be better off if 80% of the human population were female.

A thought experiment, not a manifesto.

Naturally through procreation the human population ends up with a split of roughly 50:50 between the sexes. But is this still the most suitable ratio? Might a ratio of 80% women to 20% men suit humans better?

Why?

Society is no longer stable and the imbalances are causing traumatic problems to appear.

Birth rates have fallen below replacement levels in many countries and if this trend continues humans will eventually die out. Some countries address this by allowing immigration, but that can destabilise societies and empty the places immigrants come from. Countries without immigration such as Japan are simply shrinking. If gender ratios are 50:50 the birth rate per mother required to keep a population stable is 2.4. If the gender ratio were 80:20 this falls to just 1.4 births per mother, a much easier target.

Another concern for humankind is the difficulty in feeding all the people who exist on the planet. Having 80% women helps this too. An average man needs 2500 calories a day, a woman needs 1900 calories. Going to 80:20 means global food consumption would drop by 8%.

So we’ve stabilised the population and food supplies, how about the advancement of society?

Women are already better educated than men, more likely to go to university and achieve higher exam results. 80:20 will therefore simply increase the proportion of well educated people. Women are also well known for being better at communication, have better empathy and better co-ordination of people, all skills in increasing need in the modern workforce.

With 80:20 many companies would become less male-oriented, accelerating child care provision and flexible working arrangements to further encourage women in work.

In the community we’d have less violence and lower crime, activities always led by men. We’d also see a weakening of groups organised as patriarchies, such as the major religions. These have subjugated women for generations, with 80% women they would become untenable and need to change or disappear, so liberating millions.

But what of the poor men? They’d be ok. So many more women than men would make the remaining ones more in demand. Without control and the need to compete so vigorously they would become less stressed and may start living as long as women. There’d still be enough to play sport, go to the pub and lift heavy objects but the pressures on competition would be much reduced.

So why not?

There’s always downsides, the principle one being the reorganisation of society to reduce the idea of the nuclear family. Marriage for life between a man and a woman would be impossible for most people. Men would have to be shared or all-female households and communities organised. We may find the current housing stock to be unsuitable for these households and changing the built fabric of a city would be extremely time consuming and costly.

How?

In practical terms with medical technology this step is relatively simple and could be achieved in three generations. The sex of a baby can be chosen in IVF procedures and gender selective abortions are already known in many parts of the world (although wrongly favouring male children).

Politically and economically there would have to be a series of incentives and disincentives to achieve the correct sex ratio although as females are the primary beneficiaries of the change persuasion should be relatively easy. Requiring a first child to be female would be a simple rule and would be rewarded with generous childcare and parental support. A second child for those who wished for a second could then be male or female depending on ‘fine tuning’ of the population, again with financial support.

Conclusion

Going to 80% women solves many hard problems facing society today but the softer issues are more uncertain. Would society survive the upheaval? Would it be liberated? Change always brings risks, but can we risk not making changes?