This paper shows that child gender affects the marital status and fertility decisions of Americanparents and that there are serious negative effects for children in households with first-born girls. Overall, we find that fathers of boys are substantially more likely to be living with their children compared to fathers of girls. A first-born daughter is 3·1% less likely to live with her fathercompared to a first-born son. This gender differential impacts a significant number of children. We estimate that in any given year, roughly 52,000 first-born daughters younger than 12 years andtheir siblings would have had a resident father if they had been boys. Three factors are importantin explaining why fathers are more likely to live with their sons than with their daughters. First, mothers of girls are substantially more likely to have never been married than those of boys. Surprisingly, we also find evidence that when the gender of a child is known in utero, it affects shotgun marriages. Among women who have taken an ultrasound test during pregnancy, andtherefore probabilistically know the gender of their child in advance, we find that mothers whohave a girl are less likely to be married at delivery than those who have a boy. Second, parents of girls are significantly more likely to be divorced than those of boys. Third, after a divorce, fathers are much more likely to have custody or visitation rights for their sons than for their daughters. eml.berkeley.edu/~moretti/sons.pdf
Posted on: Thu, 01 May 2014 21:13:03 +0000
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