Unintended benefits of parental son preference: sibling gender composition, personalities, and eldest daughters’ income

Some influential studies suggest that a firstborn daughter is associated with (1) lower marital quality and (2) greater participation in the labor market by mothers. They also point out that a strong preference for sons among fathers may explain these first daughter effects. This study replicates these findings in large cities in Japan, where parents generally exhibit no son preference. In order to derive causal effects, quasi-random assignment of the firstborn child's sex was exploited. The main results from two surveys consistently find fairly sizable effects from the firstborn child's sex on later marital life: a firstborn daughter is associated with an increased incidence of domestic violence between her father and mother. In addition, firstborn daughters are associated with lower marital and family happiness among mothers. Concerning the effects of the firstborn child's sex on maternal labor supply, mothers with a firstborn daughter were consistently found to exhibit a greater labor supply. Taken together, first daughter effects in Japan appear to be similar to those reported in countries with a strong parental son preference. This finding suggests that care should be taken when trying to induce parental preference on child sex by observing marital status. After these results are presented, alternative potential mechanisms are discussed.

First daughter effects in Japan

Strong boy-bias and its consequences for young and unborn girls have been widely documented for Asia. This paper considers a country in Sub-Saharan Africa and finds that parental gender preferences do affect fertility behavior and shape traditional social institutions with negative effects on adult women's health and well-being. Using individual-level data for Nigeria, the paper shows that, compared to women with first-born sons, women with first-born daughters have (and desire) more children and are less likely to use contraceptives. Women with daughters among earlier-born children are also more likely to have shorter birth intervals, a behavior medically known to increase the risk of child and maternal mortality. Moreover, they are more likely to end up in a polygynous union, to be divorced, and to be head of the household. The preference for sons is also supported by child fostering patterns in which daughters are substitutes for foster girls, while the same does not hold for sons and foster boys. These results can partly explain excess female mortality among adult women in Sub-Saharan Africa.

This paper is the first to show that morbidity and mortality among adult women in India can be partially explained by son preference. First, I show suggestive evidence that women with a first-born girl have lower survival. Second, consistent with prior literature, I find that having a first-born girl leads to fertility behaviors medically known to hurt women's survival. Third, I show new evidence of effects of a first-born girl on a mother's likelihood and severity of anemia. These outcomes are severely aggravated with each successive female birth. Back-of-the-envelope calculations indicate that these channels can explain over a quarter of the missing mothers with first-born girls. The paper does not find evidence of discrimination in the allocation of food or receipt of iron supplements, however, severe physical domestic violence increases significantly soon after the birth of a first daughter.

This paper is the first to show that excess mortality among adult women can be partly explained by strong preference for male children, the same cultural norm widely known to cause excess mortality before birth or at young ages. Using pooled individual-level data for India, the paper compares the age structure and anemia status of women by the sex of their first-born and uncovers several new findings. First, the share of living women with a first-born girl is a decreasing function of the women's age at the time of the survey. Second, while there are no systematic differences at the time of birth, women with a first-born girl are significantly more likely to develop anemia when young (under the age of 30) and these differences disappear for older women. Moreover, among those in the older age group, they appear to be significantly better off in terms of various predetermined characteristics. These findings are consistent with a selection effect in which maternal and adult mortality is higher for women with first-born girls, especially the poor and uneducated with limited access to health care and prenatal sex diagnostic technologies. To ensure the desired sex composition of children, these women resort to a fertility behavior medically known to increase their risk of death. The observed sex ratios for first births imply that 2.2-8.4 percent of women with first-born girls are'missing'because of son preference between the ages of 30 and 49.

The authors reply: The aim of our retrospective cohort study was to investigate the occurrence of preeclampsia in mothers as a risk factor for preeclampsia in daughters and to estimate the magnitude of the relative risk and the population attributable proportion (PAP). 1 Since the 1960s, several hypotheses concerning possible inheritance have been proposed; however, none sufficiently describes the underlying mechanisms. The etiology of preeclampsia is still unknown and the pathophysiology remains poorly understood. Rockhill has commented on our presentation and interpretation of our findings, primarily with respect to the population attributable proportion. We agree with Rockhill that “not all familial history indicates genetic predisposition, and not all genetic predisposition is necessarily reflected in a one-generation first-degree family history.” Besides primiparity and familial occurrence of preeclampsia, however, few other exposures are known to affect preeclampsia occurrence. To our knowledge, other familial factors, such as socioeconomic status, do not influence preeclampsia occurrence. Smoking, however, has been found to be protective for the development of preeclampsia. Throughout the study we have calculated the PAP from the relative risk and the proportion exposed in the population for every specified comparison. Rockhill states that “the estimates of ‘proportion exposed’ are not clearly identifiable anywhere in this article.” They are, however, presented indirectly in the tables. In Table 2 and 3 the proportion of exposed is easily calculated through combination of data given in the table(s). For example, the number of exposed elder daughters are presented as the denominator (N = 1,313) in the calculation of the prevalence of preeclampsia at elder daughter’s first delivery (67/1,313) (Table 2). The proportion exposed among elder daughters at their first delivery can be calculated by dividing the number of exposed subjects by the total number of subjects (eg, 1,313/22,768 = 0.058 estimated as 0.055 by Rockhill). Furthermore, Rockhill questions why the proportion exposed at elder daughter’s first and second delivery differs. The reason is that at the second delivery a subpopulation of elder daughters is “selected” because parity evidently differs between the two groups. Rockhill comments that the proportions exposed “differ widely.” The proportions exposed in the second part of Table 2 represent an “aggregated risk” of preeclampsia, ie, preeclampsia during any of the mother’s pregnancies other than the targeted pregnancy. In Table 3 only women registered with a firstborn daughter or a firstborn son are included. As preeclampsia is more common in a woman’s first pregnancy resulting in a delivery, we do not find it surprising that the proportions exposed in the population were increased in comparison with the women in Table 2. The relative risks for elder daughters, however, were close to the relative risks presented in Table 2. Since a younger daughter’s deliveries were a limited part of the observations, this finding is less precise than the outcomes for an elder daughter’s deliveries (Tables 2 and 3). Ingrid Mogren Ulf Högberg Anna Winkvist Hans Stenlund

Sex selection and preimplantation genetic diagnosis

This article investigates whether men's sexual behavior is influenced by the sex of their firstborn children and, if so, at what stage of firstborns' development this occurs. Using standardized data from 37 Demographic and Health Surveys (N = 61,801), I compare the sexual activities, sexually transmitted infection symptoms, and sexual ideologies of fathers with firstborn sons and fathers with firstborn daughters. I also explore whether fathers' attitudes mediate the effects of firstborn sex. The findings indicate that fathers with firstborn sons are less likely to report using condoms and more likely to report paying for sex and having genital ulcers than fathers with firstborn daughters. These differences are limited to the firstborn's adolescent years and are slightly mediated by attitudinal differences. Together, these results raise new questions about the underlying mechanisms linking men's sexual behavior to their children's gendered development.

Banyumas, as a region in Central Java Province~ is geographically located between two different ethnic groups, namely the Javanese and the Sundanese. This makes Banyumas receive influences from two different cultures and have specific and unique characteristics. Banyumas has a variety ofarts such as, among others, lengger calung, ebeg, baritan, buncisan, angguk, wayang kulit gagrag Banyumas, aksimuda, cowongan, laisan, ·aplang/dhaeng, karawitan, ujungan dan Seni tutur Begalan. Seni Tutur Begalan is one religious or ritual art because it is performed in a specific traditional wedding ·ceremony in Banyumas. The marriage is specific when it is between the eldest daughter and the eldest son, the youngest daughter and the youngest son, the eldest daughter· and the youngest son, and the youngest daughter and the eldest son. Educational values ·in seni tutur Begalan include, among others, the following; (1) religious values can be found in a variety of components in the offering .prepared for the Begalan ceremony, reflecting the relationship between people and good, people and the nature, and people and people (habluminallah-habluminannas); (2). social values can be found in the advice or sayings through pikulan (Brenong Kepang), suggesting a value that serious or trivial problems can be solved together; (3) moral values are presented through the lyrics of tembang eling-eling, reflecting three important points, namely tata krama (politeness), temen (seriousness), and .tepa selira.(tolerance), which are important in social life

This paper explores new opportunities provided by the ongoing revolution in information technology, computer science, and Internet expansion for studies of exceptional human longevity. To this aim, the detailed family data for 991 alleged centenarians born between 1875 and 1899 in the United States were extracted from publicly available computerized family histories of 75 million individuals available at the Rootsweb site. To validate the age of the centenarians, these records were linked first to the Social Security Administration Death Master File records (for death date validation) and then to the records of the U.S. censuses for 1900, 1910, and 1920 (for birth date validation). The results of this cross-validation study demonstrated that computerized genealogies may serve as a useful starting point for developing a reliable family-linked scientific database on exceptional human longevity. The resulting database on centenarians with validated ages was used in the study of the predictors of exceptional human longevity, including familial factors and early-life living conditions. The comparison of households where children (future centenarians) were raised (using data obtained through linkage of genealogies to early U.S. censuses) with control households drawn from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series for the 1900 U.S. census suggests that a farm background (farm ownership by parents in particular) and childhood residence in the Western region of the United States may be predictive for subsequent survival to age 100. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that lower burden of sickness during childhood (expressed as lower child mortality in families of farm owners and families living in the West) may have far-reaching consequences for survival to extreme old ages. Analysis of familial factors suggests that there may be a link between exceptional longevity and a person’s birth order. It was found that first-born daughters are three times more likely to survive to age 100, compared to later-born daughters of higher birth orders (7+). First-born sons are twice more likely to become centenarians compared to sons having birth order between four and six. Further within-family comparison of centenarians with their siblings found that the protective effect of being first-born is driven mostly by the young maternal age at the person’s birth (being born to a mother younger than 25 years). Being born to a young mother is an important withinfamily predictor of human longevity, and even at age 75 it is still important to be born to young mother to survive to 100 years.

ABSTRACTIn order to understand the economic incentives behind gender discrimination in India, this paper provides the first estimates of the magnitude of the economic benefits of having a son instead of a daughter. The study estimates large gains from a first-born son to per capita income and expenditure, household assets, and a reduction in the probability the household is below the poverty line. Estimates show that a first-born son may provide economic advantages through a reduction in total children born and also from an adult son’s labor supply contribution to his parents’ household. The observed pattern of incentives is also compared with observed patterns in sex selection as a test of whether the relative economic value of first-born sons and daughters can explain the prevalence of sex-selective abortion.

Preference for sons has been shown in various ways, but is it still up to date? I investigate how sex preference has evolved during the past 50 years using population-wide data from Finland. I find that having a first-born girl increases fertility and decreases the probability of being together with the child’s father in the 1960s to 1980s but not after the 1990s. Families with a first-born girl had 0.03 more children in the years 1960–1980. The effect decreases to an imprecise zero in the 1990s and to 0.007 fewer children in the 2000s. This shift occurs at the same time as the female and male employment rates approach each other. As the costs of raising a girl are not greater than those of raising a boy in Finland, the results suggest that the shift might be due to increased female bargaining power. Past literature has shown that females prefer girls over boys or are more neutral than males, who prefer having sons over daughters more often.

The aim of the study was to reveal the ethnic and socioeconomic factors associated with height and body mass index (BMI) of children during the period of political and social transition in Lithuania in 1990-2008. Data were derived from the personal health records of 1491 children (762 boys and 729 girls) born in 1990 in Vilnius city and region. Height and BMI from birth up to the age of 18 years were investigated. Children were divided into groups according to their ethnicity, place of residence, father's and mother's occupation and birth order. Height and BMI were compared between the groups; a Bonferroni correction was applied. A multiple linear regression model was used to measure the effects of the independent variables on height and BMI. Girls living in Vilnius city were significantly taller in later life at the ages of 8 and 11 years. Sons of mothers employed as office workers appeared to be significantly taller at the ages of 7, 12, 14 and 15 years compared with the sons of labourers. First-born girls were taller at the age of 7 years than later-born girls of the same age (124.48±5.11 cm and 122.92±5.14 cm, respectively, p<0.001). Later-born children of both sexes had higher BMIs at birth compared with first-borns; however, first-born girls had higher BMIs at the age of 11 years compared with their later-born peers (17.78±2.87 kg/m² and 16.79±2.14 kg/m² respectively, p<0.001). In the multiple linear regression model, the five tested independent variables explained only up to 18% of total variability. Boys were more sensitive to ethnic and socioeconomic factors: ethnicity appeared to be a significant predictor of boys' height at the age of 5 years (p<0.001), while birth order (p<0.001) predicted boys' BMI at birth. In general, ethnicity, place of residence, father's and mother's occupation and birth order were not associated with children's height and BMI in most age groups.

The Coat of Arms in Fra Filippo Lippi’s <i>Portrait of a Woman with a Man at a Casement</i>

Despite the vast literature on birth-order effects in developing countries, there has been little research on their long-term changes. This study uses three population censuses of Cambodia to investigate how birth order affects educational attainments and how its effects changed over time. We estimate regressions with family fixed effects and cohort fixed effects, and present four findings. First, later-born children are less likely to enroll in primary school and gain literacy skills, and end up with fewer years of schooling than first-born children. Second, controlling for gender differences in education, we find smaller birth-order effects for girls. Third, there is a strong relationship between the gender composition of siblings and birth-order effects. Finally, not only have these birth-order effects attenuated over time but the relationship between the gender composition of siblings and birth-order effects has also changed. In the 1998 census, if the firstborn child is male, his sisters’ educational outcomes are influenced more by their birth order compared with his brothers. In contrast, in the 2019 census, if the firstborn child is male, his sisters' educational outcomes are less susceptible to birth-order effects compared with his brothers. Our findings indicate gendered economic disparities within households and their long-term changes.