Men outnumbered women by 32.66 million on the Chinese mainland by the end of 2017, according to data released by National Bureau of Statistics on Jan. 18.

Experts warn that the imbalanced sex ratio of 104.81 males for every 100 females may cause social problems, China News reported.

The statistics show that the total population of the Chinese mainland was about 1.39 billion by the end of 2017, among which, the population of men stood at about 711.37 million, with the female population at 678.71 million. Men outnumber women by 32.66 million, down 930,000 compared with 2016.

The narrower gender gap is attributed to the comprehensive two-child policy implemented by the country since 2015, said Chen Jian, vice president of China Society of Social Reform.

Chen stressed that the phenomenon of men far outnumbering women may cause lots of social problems and influence social and economic development.

Li Jianxin, a professor at the Department of Sociology, Peking University, also noted that surplus of men, whose physiological needs cannot be normally met, may be a threat to the society, adding that as China is now stepping into an aging society, once the population of marriage age keeps rising, it will be a complex and difficult social security problem in the future.

In addition, Chinese women nowadays have more advantages in choosing their mates than men due to the gender gap, and they are inclined to choose someone better than themselves, making it harder to find a suitable marriage partner, Chen pointed out.