On a crude statistical basis children born out of wedlock don't fare too well either, yet the Economist article paints them as some kind of Western demographic advantage.

I haven't read the book so I wouldn't know whether the Gilder successfully separates cause from effect when examining unmarried men, but extrapolating his conclusions to Asia may be difficult anyway. On the one hand it may be rather more socially unacceptable to be unmarried over a certain age in Asia but on the other, unmarried men at the bottom of the social pile will perhaps be heartened by the relative prevalence and social acceptability of the sex industry. Then you have the vast differences between crime and suicide rates in general.