Gender composition of children and desires for the next child in “son preference” countries

Abstract

This paper studies the role of gender preferences for children in formation of desires for the next child in nine countries of the Middle East and North Africa, South and Central Asia, the Caucasus and Balkans. For all countries selected for the study, effects of son preference have been detected in actual fertility during recent decades, but gender preferences in desires for the next child have been studied much less systematically. Using Demographic and Health Surveys conducted in these countries in 2010–2021, desires to stop fertility and to have a child within 2 years are considered separately for women with one and two living children. For women with one living child, the gender of that child has a significant effect on these desires only in South-Asian countries, where women who only have a daughter are more likely to want to have another child within 2 years and less likely to want to stop childbearing compared to women who only have a son. For women with two living children, in most of the considered countries, the desire to have another child within 2 years only shows a preference for having at least one son, whereas the desire to stop fertility shows effects of balanced gender preference in six out of the nine countries. The preference for a balanced gender composition of children observed for the desire to stop fertility actualizes the question of whether a son preference will remain unchallenged in actual fertility in these countries in the near future. In the final section, possible social correlates of son preference and balanced gender preference are discussed on the example of two countries, Bangladesh and Nepal.