Translated from the original Spanish article. Read in Spanish
It's a thought experiment: what would happen if half of humanity disappeared tomorrow? First, the men. Then, the women.
If the men disappeared
We're talking about some four billion people. And the first thing you'd notice: almost no plane could take off. According to the International Civil Aviation Organization, 96% of pilots are men.
In construction and among truck and machinery drivers, they're 97%, according to the International Labour Organization (ILO). Without truckers, many supermarkets could run empty within days. And without electricians, a simple blackout could last much longer. Armies would lose more than 90% of their soldiers.
But there's a surprising fact: more than 90% of homicide suspects worldwide are men. So murders could plummet.
And would humanity go extinct? Not necessarily. Sperm banks hold frozen samples that can last for decades. And since half of those sperm carry the Y chromosome, boys would be born again. Within a generation, the world could start to rebalance.
If the women disappeared
Now, some 4.1 billion people. The first thing you'd notice: hospitals. According to the World Health Organization, nine out of ten nurses in the world are women.
Schools too: in preschool, 85% of teachers are women.
And there's work almost no one counts: cooking, cleaning, caring for children and the elderly. According to the ILO, women do 76% of unpaid care work worldwide. Millions of men would have to learn to do it overnight.
The biggest problem
With men, sperm banks saved humanity. Here there's no such way out: to be born, a baby needs a uterus. The artificial wombs being researched today only aim to help premature babies; they can't carry a full pregnancy.
Without births, the population could only age… until it disappeared, in about a hundred years.
Without men, the world would stagger. Without women, it would fade out.
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Sources (in Spanish)
- Pilotos por sexo: Organización de Aviación Civil Internacional (OACI).
- Construcción, transporte y trabajo de cuidados no pagado (76 %): Organización Internacional del Trabajo (OIT), informe «El trabajo de cuidados y los trabajadores del cuidado».
- Sospechosos de homicidio por sexo: Oficina de las Naciones Unidas contra la Droga y el Delito (UNODC), Estudio mundial sobre el homicidio.
- Enfermeras en el mundo: Organización Mundial de la Salud, «Situación de la enfermería en el mundo».
- Docentes de preescolar por sexo: UNESCO, Instituto de Estadística.
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