Does Child Gender Affect Marital Status?

Andrew Leigh

No 526, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research, Research School of Economics, Australian National University

Abstract: Pooling microdata from five Australian censuses, I explore the relationship between child gender and divorce. By contrast with the United States, I find no evidence that the gender of the first child has a significant impact on the decision to marry or divorce. However, among two-child families, parents with two children of the same sex are 1.7 percentage points less likely to be married than parents with a boy and a girl. Surveys of parental attitudes suggest that this effect is more likely to be driven by fathers than by mothers. This finding is not consistent with theories of preference for sons over daughters, differential costs, role models or complementary costs, but is consistent with a theory of parity preference.

Keywords: marriage; divorce; daughters; sons; child gender (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J12 J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30 pages
Date: 2006-05
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Journal Article: Does child gender affect marital status? Evidence from Australia (2009)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:auu:dpaper:526

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