Sex of previous children and desirability of the next child: a follow-up study of unwanted children

Abstract

author focuses on the significance of family sex composition as a determinant of family size utilizing and updating findings from a 1980 study conducted in Finland. The main purpose of this study is to compare the families with children of one sex who wanted an additional child with matched families who did not want the child and to assess the possible effects on the study group consists of 59 Finnish families with two to four children of one sex 20 of whom had an additional unwanted child and 39 of whom had an additional wanted child. study group and a control group were surveyed during pregnancy and eight years later. results are analyzed to determine the desirability of the additional child in families of different sex compositions. (EXCERPT)