Comments on: All Things Nice

By: Ruth

Ruth — Wed, 08 Oct 2003 15:51:32 +0000

As an explanation for why parents who use Microsort often aim for girls, don’t forget that many genetic disorders are sex-linked. As common as sociocultural preferences for boys are, even in oh-so-enlightened contemporary America, it’s still officially frowned upon to medically manipulate conception or pregnancy just as a matter of personal preference for a son. Sex-selection places tend to market themselves to prospective parents who know that it’s genetically risky to have a child of a particular sex—and, although I could be wrong about this, I think there are more known problems linked to the Y chormosome (perhaps because w/X-linked traits, since every girl has 2 X choromosomes, she could end up being merely a carrier of Syndrome A, whereas any son would automatically exhibit Syndrome B if it’s carried on his father’s Y chromosome? Help me—it’s been years since I studied genetics).

By: Thomas

Thomas — Wed, 08 Oct 2003 05:19:11 +0000

What kind of parent invests in his or her child’s education to maximize the child’s earning potential, and how is that investment rational? I want my children to be well educated so they can live a good life—and not just in a material sense. I don’t expect my children to support me, any more than I support my parents. Social insurance schemes and private savings generally provide for those needs now, which suggests that the “rational” thing is to forego having children, letting other people do all the work while still sharing in their gain. Luckily, life isn’t rational in that narrow sense.

By: Harry

Harry — Tue, 07 Oct 2003 19:57:26 +0000

What’s wrong with the following hypothesis? Girl children provide better for their parents in old age; they give more care, ore more likely to live near their aging parent, and are more likely to give financial support (and divert their spouse’s income to this end, so their own lack of earning power is not an issue). If mothers know that they are more likely to get support in old age (when they’ll need it) they have less need to stick with otherwise unsatisfactory partners, and the threshold of acceptability for aspirant subsequent partners gets higher. This explanation works at least as well, if not better, when girls have slightly worse economic prospects than boys. It also explains why parents choose girls rather than boys when they can select sex (though there are other explanations of this—people know that girls are easier than boys in the early years; they are more fun to dress up, etc). What about men? They prefer boys, maybe, but 1) they have better financial expectations on divorce than women and 2) they expect to repartner and get emotional and caring support from younger partners, and to predecease their partner, so anticipate having less need of support from their children.

By: brayden

brayden — Tue, 07 Oct 2003 19:54:59 +0000

Tim: Your point seems to miss one of the main findings in this study. While the effect of daughters on divorce is present in the U.S., it is relatively small compared to other countries. In Vietnam, parents of a daughter are 25% more likely to divorce. Cross-national differences in this effect suggest that it may be related to societal-level differences in gender institutionalization, or perhaps you would argue that Vietnamese women and men are even more dissimilar than in the U.S. Or perhaps Vietnamese women and men are from different galaxies?

By: Joe

Joe — Tue, 07 Oct 2003 18:41:07 +0000

My own two theories: 1.) Men tend to spend more time with male children. Women tend to stay married to (and get married to, in the case of a single or divorced mother) men that they perceive to be a better father. Thus, because men interact more with their (actual or potential) sons, they appear to be better parents, and thus, more attractive to their spouses or potential spouses. 2.) Women communicate better with their female children. One of the reasons that otherwise unhappy women do not get divorced is a fear of loneliness. That fear is abated if a daughter is present. Thus, women are less likely to stay married. Conversely, it could just be a holdover from developing societies, with immigrants skewing the otherwise neutral U.S. results.

By: Tripp

Tripp — Tue, 07 Oct 2003 15:56:14 +0000

Men and Women both may believe that women can best raise daughters and men can bet raise sons. That would explain a lot of the survey results.

By: Tim

Tim — Tue, 07 Oct 2003 15:02:32 +0000

I think you’ll find that Dr John Gray has documented pretty conclusively that men are from Mars and women are from Venus. Clearly, something more than patriarchy is at play here, a point inexplicably not addressed by this research.

By: Ben

Ben — Tue, 07 Oct 2003 12:24:18 +0000

As an interesting aside to the point made in the article that people tend to prefer to have boys, women in general express a preference for adopting girls,and single women more frequently have adopted girls than boys. http://adoption.about.com/library/specials/blcensus2000e.htm

By: drapetomaniac

drapetomaniac — Tue, 07 Oct 2003 10:53:03 +0000

Landsburg himself brings up other countries — like China and India — where the killing of daughters is common. I wouldn’t put it this way. Female infanticide is quite common in specific communities in India, and occurs much less commonly in a larger number of communities. And my understanding is that it is most common in those subaltern communities which are ‘sanskritizing’, i.e. adopting elite mores that elite communities have themselves discarded. This emphasizes status rather than just the economic benefits to having sons.

By: MWD

MWD — Tue, 07 Oct 2003 08:01:54 +0000

Who decided only Daddy has a choice in marriage/divorce situations? To spin Rob’s point a bit further, Mommy might decide little Johnny needs a father more than little Joanne. Mommy might decide she doesn’t want to raise a son alone. Mommy might know that sons are more likely to die in before twenty, and want an experienced hand about to guide them through the most dangerous years. Note that these don’t necessarily need to be true, Mommy just has to believe it. Divorce would then require more cause, Mommy might be a little more likely to marry Daddy. This doesn’t explain the pattern of trying to have children after having girls, but the pattern could just as easily be stated as “Parents who have boys STOP trying to have more children”. This could be preference, or it could be the reality of having one of the little terrors scares parents off. If Laura is correct and male children shorten lifespan, there must be a mechanism, and that mechanism might be noticible by the parents early. Of course, the mechanism might be the boy children learning to drive. One never knows. I can’t quibble with the studies numbers, but the interpretation seems to be a case of the researchers finding exactly what they were looking for from the beginning.

By: Laura

Laura — Tue, 07 Oct 2003 05:53:30 +0000

As a mother of two boys, I’m somewhat comforted by that study. Other studies have shown that women who have boys have shorter life spans than women who have girls. I might die sooner, but I’ll still be married. Maybe parents of boys are too exhausted to fool around.

By: EKR

EKR — Tue, 07 Oct 2003 03:37:21 +0000

An alternative hypothesis is that couples under a lot of stress—those likely to get divorced—are more likely to have daughters. I elaborate on this a bit at: http://www.rtfm.com/movabletype/archives/2003_10.html#000502

By: brayden

brayden — Tue, 07 Oct 2003 03:27:08 +0000

Your patriarchy explanation sounds dead on to me. I wonder what happens to the effect of daughter when one controls for immigrant status or adds an interaction effect of immigrant status X daughter. The argument would be that people immigrating from a country with rigid patriarchal gender relations are more likely to see a daughter’s birth as unfavorable.

By: dop

dop — Tue, 07 Oct 2003 03:23:18 +0000

Yes, I’d have to agree somewhat with Rob. I’d think a woman might have “higher standards” for the kind of people she would allow near her young or teen-aged daughters—both from the protection point of view and from the competition point of view. Alternately, from a man’s perspective, if you find a woman you’re interested in has young sons about to enter puberty, that’s not too big a deal. On the other hand, many, many, many men I know are very uncomfortable around young or adolescent girls just because of the “what if they say I touched them?” factor. It isn’t that they “prefer” boys so much, it’s more that they feel more at risk for charges of abuse with a girl.

By: Rob

Rob — Tue, 07 Oct 2003 03:09:35 +0000

Actually, you could interpret the two points as the mother preferring not to marry present opportunities with a daughter while they would with a son. So it could be mothers of daughters are more picky when it comes to mates.