Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T13:10:19.405Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Preferences for sex of children: a multivariate analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 July 2008

Vijaya Krishnan
Vijaya Krishnan
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology,University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

This paper, based on 1973–74 Growth of Alberta Family Study data, examines the sex preference for children among women in Edmonton. Discriminant functions are used to examine whether the two groups of women—those who prefer to have sons and those who prefer to have daughters—differ in selected characteristics such as age, birth place, residence in youth, education, religion, number and sex of siblings, traditional female roles, and attitude towards sex predetermination.

The results show some preference for sons, although generally women prefer to have children of both sexes. The variables birth place, number of female siblings of wife, and education of husband are found to discriminate best among the two groups. In general, the results suggest that sex preference among women is more heavily determined by their country of birth and number of male and female siblings. There is some evidence to suggest that preference for sex of children varies between adolescents and older women. The findings suggest that women generally do not favour the idea of sex predetermination.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Biosocial Science , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , July 1987 , pp. 367 - 376
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Dahlberg, G. (1948) Do parents want boys or girls? Acta genet. Statist. med. 1, 163.Google ScholarPubMed
Dinitz, S., Dynes, R. & Clarke, A. (1954) Preference for male or female children: traditional or affectional? Marriage & Fam. Living, 16, 128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freedman, D. S., Freedman, R. & Whelpton, P. K. (1960) Size of family and preferences for children of each sex. Am. J. Sociol. 66, 141.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodman, L. A. (1968) The analysis of cross-classified data: independence, quasi-independence, and interactions in contingency tables with or without missing entries. J. Am. statist. Ass. 63, 1091.Google Scholar
Goodman, L. A. (1970) The multivariate analysis of qualitative data: interactions among multiple classifications. J. Am. statist. Ass. 65, 226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodman, L. A. (1972) A modified multiple regression approach to the analysis of dichotomous variables. Am. sociol. Rev. 37, 28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grizzle, J. E., Starmer, C. F. & Koch, G. G. (1969) Analysis of categorical data by linear models. Biometrics, 25, 489.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Krishnan, P. & Krotki, K. J. (1976) Growth of Alberta Family Study (GAFS). A Report to Health and Welfare Canada on Questionnaires Collected from 1045 Women of Edmonton in the Winter of 1973–74. Population Research Laboratory, University of Alberta, Edmonton.Google Scholar
Krishnan, V. (1975) The Effect of Sex Preference on Fertility. MSc thesis, University of Kerala, India.Google Scholar
Nie, N. H., Hull, C. H., Jenkins, J. G., Steinbrenner, K. & Bent, D. H. (1975) Statistical Package for the Social Sciences. McGraw-Hill, New York.Google Scholar
Population Council (1970) A Manual for Surveys of Fertility and Family Planning: Knowledge, Attitudes and Practice. Population Council, New York.Google Scholar
Repetto, R. (1972) Son preference and fertility behavior in developing countries. Stud. Fam. Plann. 3, 70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swafford, M. (1980) Three parametric techniques for contingency table analysis, a non-technical commentary. Am. sociol. Rev. 45, 644.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Uddenberg, N., Almgren, P. E. & Nilsson, A. (1971) Preference for sex of the child among pregnant women. J. biosoc. Sci. 3, 267.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Winston, S. (1932) Birth control and sex ratio at birth. Am. J. Sociol. 38, 225.CrossRefGoogle Scholar