Hidden Consequences of a First-Born Boy for Mothers

Andrea Ichino, Elly-Ann Lindström () and Eliana Viviano
Additional contact information
Elly-Ann Lindström: IFAU

No 5649, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We show that in the US, the UK, Italy and Sweden women whose first child is a boy are less likely to work in a typical week and work fewer hours than women with first-born girls. The puzzle is why women in these countries react in this way to the sex of their first child, which is chosen randomly by nature. We consider two explanations. As Dahl and Moretti (2008) we show that first-born boys positively affect the probability that a marriage survives, but differently from them and from the literature on developing countries, we show that after a first-born boy the probability that women have more children increases. In these advanced economies the negative impact on fertility deriving from the fact that fewer pregnancies are needed to get a boy is more than compensated by the positive effect on fertility deriving from the greater stability of marriages, which is neglected by studies that focus on married women only.

Keywords: mothers’ behaviour; female labour supply; preference for sons (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E24 J13 J22 J23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 19 pages
Date: 2011-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab and nep-mac
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Published - published in: Economic Letters, 2014, 123 (3), 274–278

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Related works:
Journal Article: Hidden consequences of a first-born boy for mothers (2014)
Working Paper: Hidden consequences of a first-born boy for mothers (2011)
Working Paper: Hidden consequences of a first-born boy for mothers (2011)
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