Son preference and sex composition of children: Evidence from india

Clark, Stuart

doi:10.2307/2648099

Cited by 378 publications

(345 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…Previous studies have shown that a child's birth order and the number, sex and ordering of her siblings matters for her survival and well-being (Clark 2000;Pande 2003). Our results suggest that the number of siblings has important implications for childrens' growth (Model 9 in Table 5), but does not explain the excess male advantage in China.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 36%

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Does son preference influence children's growth in height? A comparative study of Chinese and Filipino children

Song

Burgard

2008

Population Studies

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A substantial body of research has demonstrated that son preference has a serious impact on the survival and well-being of female infants and children in some parts of South and East Asia, but little is known about the consequences of son preference in later childhood and adolescence. We compare male and female children's growth trajectories in height over childhood and adolescence in China, where the level of son preference is relatively high, and the Philippines, where the level of son preference is relatively low. Children's height indexes well-being because it reflects long-term nutritional status and exposure to infectious diseases, both influenced by household decision-making and, presumably, by a preference for sons. Using longitudinal data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey and the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey and multilevel growth models, we find that male children in China show an excess height advantage relative to their female counterparts, when compared to the male-female difference in growth trajectories in the Philippines. Further analysis reveals that the excess male advantage in China is evident only in rural areas. These findings are discussed in the context of the reproduction of gender inequality across the life course in high son preference settings.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 36%

“…For example, Clark (2000) reports that in India, rural women desire a greater proportion of sons than do urban women, and Ren (1995) notes relatively higher child mortality among female children in rural areas in China.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does son preference influence children's growth in height? A comparative study of Chinese and Filipino children

Song

Burgard

2008

Population Studies

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“…We use, as an instrument, a binary variable that is equal to one if the first-born child is a girl, and to zero otherwise. The effects of the first-born's gender have been analysed in various papers (Rosenzweig and Wolpin, 2000), in Asia (Chowdhury and Bairagi, 1990;Clark, 2000;Dreze and Murthi, 2001;Lee, 2008;Li and Wu, 2011;Milazzo, 2014b), and more recently, in Sub-Saharan Africa (Milazzo, 2014a). In Nepal, as in other countries, there is a strong preference for boys.…”

Section: Empirical Strategymentioning

confidence: 99%

Fertility, household size and poverty in Nepal

Libois

Somville

2018

World Development

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Population control policies keep attracting attention: by increasing the household size, having more children would directly contribute to a household's poverty. Using nationally representative household level data from Nepal, we investigate the links between a household's fertility decisions and variations in their size and composition. We show that the relationship between number of births and household size is positive when the mothers are young, but becomes negative as the mothers grow older. Elderly couples who had fewer children host, on average, more relatives who are outside the immediate family unit. This result sheds light on the heterogeneous relation between the number of children and household size over the life cycle. It also implies that reductions in a household's fertility may have an ambiguous impact on its per capita consumption, which depends on how the household's composition responds to new births and changes over time: in this sample, an old household's per capita consumption is not affected by the number of births. We use the gender of the first-born child to instrument the total number of consecutive children.

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“…Due to this preference for sons, many couples in South and East Asia face a difficult choice: either to risk having no sons and lose face in front of their friends and family, or to take deliberate steps to ensure that at least one of their children is male. Many couples make the second choice by means of sex-selective abortions and infanticide, thus contributing to the abnormally high ratio of male to female children in their countries (14)(15)(16).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Economics, cultural transmission, and the dynamics of the sex ratio at birth in China

Lipatov

Feldman

2008

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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In rural China, the ratio of newborn boys to newborn girls [sex ratio at birth (SRB)] has been rising for several decades, to values significantly above its biological norm. This trend has a number of alarming societal consequences, and has attracted the attention of scholars and politicians. The root of the problem lies in a 2,500-year-old culture of son preference. This culture is intricately linked with the economic reality of each couple's life, so that there are financial and psychological repercussions to parents who have no sons. To bring greater clarity and understanding to this issue, we present a quantitative framework that describes the interaction between economics and cultural transmission. We start with an explicit mechanism by which economic incentives can change cultural beliefs of a given individual, and go on to include a mechanism of cultural inheritance from generation to generation. We then show how economic conditions can affect the dynamics of cultural change in an entire society, and may lead to a decrease in the country's sex ratio at birth.

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Son preference and sex composition of children: Evidence from india

Cited by 378 publications

References 31 publications

Does son preference influence children's growth in height? A comparative study of Chinese and Filipino children

Does son preference influence children's growth in height? A comparative study of Chinese and Filipino children

Fertility, household size and poverty in Nepal

Economics, cultural transmission, and the dynamics of the sex ratio at birth in China

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