In an optimizing model of parental allocation systematic differences in human capital investments betwen the sexes may originate in at least 3 ways. 1) Parents may respond to expected gender wage differentials. 2) Parents may respond to systematic differences by gender in the price of human capital investments. 3) Parental preferences may favor girls or boys in the sense that they value identical outcomes at the same cost more highly for one sex than for the other. This paper analyzes the role of parental preferences in general and unequal concern in particular in the allocation of human capital investments among children. The authors generalize their earlier model of the human capital investments among children to incorporate the possibility that the returns to such investments may include not only the childs own ecpected earnings but also the expected earnings of his or her spouse. Thus the model assumes that parents may value returns that accrue trough the marriage market as well as through education. The relevant returns to education may include marrying a spouse with higher expected earnings. The empirical analysis indicates that gender wage differentials like endowment differentials are mildly reinforced by the parental allocation of human capital investments. Marriage market outcomes are significant determinants of the allocation of human capital investments among children. There is no evidence that parental preferences favor boys; this study shows that parental preferences either exhibit equal concern or slightly favor gils.