Patriarchy, Gendered Spheres, or Evolutionary Adaptation? A Cross-National Examination of Adolescent Boys and Girls Access to Home Resources

Xu, Jun

doi:10.1080/21620555.2016.1166341

Cited by 4 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 74 publications

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“…These differences are small, however, and hover around one percent of the standard deviation of the corresponding items. This is less than reported by Xu (2016). The largest differences between all families and intact, i.e.…”

Section: Data and Sample Statisticscontrasting

confidence: 57%

Parental gender preference in the Balkans and Scandinavia: gender bias or differential costs?

Maksymovych,

Appleman,

Abramishvili

2023

J Pop Research

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There is much research indicating the presence of a parental preference for a particular gender of children. The main objective of this paper is to test between the two main explanations for the existence of such preference, namely differences in the costs of raising sons and daughters versus the gender bias (corresponding to parental utility derived from a child's gender or from characteristics exclusive to that gender). First, we use recent EU-SILC data from several Balkan and Scandinavian countries to confirm that the gender of the firstborn predicts the likelihood of a given family having three children or more -a common measure of parental gender preference. We confirm son preference in certain Balkan countries and daughter preference in Scandinavian countries. Both having a first child of the preferred gender and of the more costly gender can decrease the probability of having three or more children because parents may already be content or may lack sufficient resources, respectively. Next, we use information on household consumption to differentiate the two explanations. We argue that under the differential cost hypothesis, parents of children of the more costly gender should spend more on goods for children and less on household public goods as well as on parental personal consumption. In contrast, having children of the preferred gender should increase spending on household public goods since such families have higher marriage surplus and are more stable. Our evidence corroborates the cost difference explanation in countries exhibiting daughter preference.

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Section: Data and Sample Statisticscontrasting

confidence: 57%

Parental gender preference in the Balkans and Scandinavia: gender bias or differential costs?

Maksymovych,

Appleman,

Abramishvili

2023

J Pop Research

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“…With fewer constraints, family conditions likely produce a wider range of gendered experiences for children outside of school. As one example, parents purchase more books, read more frequently, talk about school more, and provide more music lessons for daughters than for sons (Bertrand and Pan 2013; Carter and Wojtkiewicz 2000; Dumais 2002; Xu 2016), all practices that would be condemned in schools. Similarly, parents supervise girls more closely than boys (Bumpus, Crouter, and McHale 2001; Worthen 2011), perhaps preparing them more effectively for the close monitoring they will experience in school.…”

Section: Schools As a Relatively Standardized Institutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Google search data reveal parents are 2.5 times more likely to search for “Is my son gifted?” than “Is my daughter gifted?” (Stephens-Davidowitz 2017) despite the fact that girls’ and boys’ representation in gifted programs is roughly similar (Furnham, Reeves, and Budhani 2002). Boys are also 3 times more likely than girls to enroll in computer camps and classes (often occurring during summer; Xu 2016), an activity that may advantage boys in spatial skills, such as mentally rotating objects (Feng, Spence, and Pratt 2007; Terlecki and Newcombe 2005). Entwisle and colleagues (1994) speculate that some of the neighborhood activities boys are involved with, especially in high-resource neighborhoods, could facilitate greater math skill.…”

Section: Schools As a Relatively Standardized Institutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Schools as a Relatively Standardizing Institution: The Case of Gender Gaps in Cognitive Skills

2022

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Growing evidence suggests that contrary to popular belief, schools mostly do not generate achievement gaps in cognitive skills but, rather, reflect the inequalities that already exist. In the case of socioeconomic status, exposure to school often reduces gaps. Surprisingly little is known, however, about whether this pattern extends to gender gaps in cognitive skills. We compare how gender gaps in math and reading change when children are in school versus out (in the summer) among over 900,000 U.S. children. We find that girls learn faster than boys when school is out (in both reading and math), but this advantage is completely eliminated when school is in session. Compared to the family environment, schools act as a relatively standardizing institution, producing more similar gendered patterns in learning.

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“…In our analysis, we primarily only use the first ten questions, because they are available for nearly all children in the sample, while the last three are available only for school-age children. These questions do not completely correspond to the questions from other surveys on material conditions of children that have been analyzed in the literature, e.g., NLSY79-CS HOME-SF module (Cunha et al, 2010;Todd and Wolpin, 2007;Juhn et al, 2015) and PISA-2000Xu (2016. Those surveys are more extensive.…”

Section: Considerations About Using the Gender Of The Firstborn As Thmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…All in all, the EU-SILC ad-hoc modules considered here could be seen as extended versions of the two subcomponents mentioned above, and since elements in these two subcomponents were highly correlated with child development (Bradley and Caldwell, 1980, 1981, 1984) and strongly influencing it (Cunha et al, 2010), the raw score of the EU-SILC ad-hoc modules should also be correlated with and have an impact upon child development. Furthermore, the responses from the PISA-2000 survey analyzed by Xu (2016) contain more detailed information, but correspond directly with the EU-SILC questions on participating in regular leisure activity, availability of a suitable place to study, and having books at home. Xu argues that precisely those items are important for a child's adult outcomes and supports the point by referring to multiple related studies.…”

Section: Considerations About Using the Gender Of The Firstborn As Thmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parental Gender Preference in the Balkans and Scandinavia: Gender Bias or Differential Costs?

2019

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There is much research indicating the presence of a parental preference for a particular gender of children. The main objective of this paper is to test between the two main explanations for the existence of such preference, namely differences in the costs of raising sons and daughters versus the gender bias (corresponding to parental utility derived from a child's gender or from characteristics exclusive to that gender). First, we use recent EU-SILC data from several Balkan and Scandinavian countries to confirm that the gender of the firstborn predicts the likelihood of a given family having three children or more-a common measure of parental gender preference. We confirm son preference in certain Balkan countries and daughter preference in Scandinavian countries. Both having a first child of the preferred gender and of the more costly gender can decrease the probability of having three or more children because parents may already be content or may lack sufficient resources, respectively. Next, we use information on household consumption to differentiate the two explanations. We argue that under the differential cost hypothesis, parents of children of the more costly gender should spend more on goods for children and less on household public goods as well as on parental personal consumption. In contrast, having children of the preferred gender should increase spending on household public goods since such families have higher marriage surplus and are more stable. Our evidence corroborates the cost difference explanation in countries exhibiting daughter preference.

show abstract

Patriarchy, Gendered Spheres, or Evolutionary Adaptation? A Cross-National Examination of Adolescent Boys and Girls Access to Home Resources

Cited by 4 publications

References 74 publications

Parental gender preference in the Balkans and Scandinavia: gender bias or differential costs?

Parental gender preference in the Balkans and Scandinavia: gender bias or differential costs?

Schools as a Relatively Standardizing Institution: The Case of Gender Gaps in Cognitive Skills

Parental Gender Preference in the Balkans and Scandinavia: Gender Bias or Differential Costs?

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