Son Preference in Indian Families: Absolute Versus Relative Wealth Effects

Abstract

The desire for male children is prevalent in India, where son preference has been shown to affect fertility behavior and intrahousehold allocation of resources. Economic theory predicts less gender discrimination in wealthier households, but demographers and sociologists have argued that wealth can exacerbate bias in the Indian context. I argue that these apparently conflicting theories can be reconciled and simultaneously tested if one considers that they are based on two different notions of wealth: one related to resource constraints (absolute wealth), and the other to notions of local status (relative wealth). Using cross-sectional data from the 1998-1999 and 2005-2006 National Family and Health Surveys, I construct measures of absolute and relative wealth by using principal components analysis. A series of statistical models of son preference is estimated by using multilevel methods. Results consistently show that higher absolute wealth is strongly associated with lower son preference, and the effect is 20%-40% stronger when the household's community-specific wealth score is included in the regression. Coefficients on relative wealth are positive and significant although lower in magnitude. Results are robust to using different samples, alternative groupings of households in local areas, different estimation methods, and alternative dependent variables.

Association of socioeconomic status with sex ratio at live birth in individuals living in the slums of Sholapur city, India

“…Our data are broadly consistent with those of a recent analysis of the 1998-1999 and 2005-2006 Indian National Family and Health Surveys by Gaudin, [13] suggesting that higher absolute and relative wealth are associated with lower son preference, as anticipated by hypotheses based on broader macroeconomic theory. Agrawal [14] used data from India's Second National Family Health Survey to explore the associations between sociological exposures and attitudes and usage of induced abortion in India in 1998-1999.…”

The relationship between women's paid employment and women's stated son preference in India

“…We follow the convention of other scholars and create a measure of stated son preference using NFHS questions about ideal number of children (Pande and Malhotra 2006;Gaudin 2011). Respondents were asked the ideal number of total children and the ideal number of boys and girls.…”

“…Stated son preference remains an important indicator of gender attitudes and underlying gender inequality in India (Gaudin 2011;Mitra 2014). However, there is debate in the literature about whether stated preferences correspond with actual behavior (Bongaarts 1994;Pritchett 1994).…”

Son Preference and Children’s Housework: The Case of India

“…India is a relevant case since child labor remains common (Basu et al 2003, 2009) and a preference for sons still prevails with varying intensity across society (Das Gupta et al 2003; Chung and Das Gupta 2007; Bhat and Zavier 2003; Jayaraman et al 2009; Gaudin 2011). Worldwide, girls have traditionally performed more household tasks than boys, but in this paper we hypothesize that this gap grows with son preference, as parents reduce boys’ burden of household chores.…”