Is son preference disappearing from Bangladesh?

M Asadullah, Nazia Mansoor, Teresa Randazzo and Zaki Wahhaj

World Development, 2021, vol. 140, issue C

Abstract: Historically, son preference has been widely prevalent in South Asia, manifested in the form of skewed sex ratios, gender differentials in child mortality, and worse educational investments in daughters versus sons. In the present study, we show, using data from a purposefully designed nationally representative survey for Bangladesh, that among women of childbearing age, son bias in stated fertility preferences has weakened and there is an emerging preference for gender balance. We examine a number of different hypotheses for the decline in son preference, including the increasing availability of female employment in the manufacturing sector, increased female education, and the decline of joint family living. Using survival analysis, we show that in contrast to stated fertility preferences, actual fertility decisions are still shaped by son preference.

Keywords: Fertility; Gender bias; Birth spacing; Female employment; Bangladesh (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J11 J13 J16 O12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X20304812
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Is Son Preference Disappearing from Bangladesh? (2020)
Working Paper: Is Son Preference Disappearing from Bangladesh? (2020)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:140:y:2021:i:c:s0305750x20304812

DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.105353

Access Statistics for this article

World Development is currently edited by O. T. Coomes

More articles in World Development from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().