Son Preference and Women’s Mental Health and Well-Being in India

S. Anukriti, Catalina Herrera Almanza, Shahadat Hossain and Mahesh Karra

No 360992, 2025 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2025, Denver, CO from Agricultural and Applied Economics Association

Abstract: We document the relationship between son preference and women’s mental health and well-being using data on mothers-in-law and their co-resident daughters-in-law from rural India. We leverage exogenous variation in the sex of the daughter-in-law’s firstborn child to analyze the effect of a firstborn (grand)son on the (grand)mother’s mental health and the relationship between the mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law. Mothers-in-law with firstborn grandsons experience an 18 percent reduction in the risk of anxiety or depression compared to mothers-in-law with firstborn granddaughters. We find no impact of a firstborn son on daughter-in-law mental health. The birth of a grandson also increases mother-in-law approval of her daughter-in-law working outside the home and using family planning, as well as the daughter-in-law’s labor force participation and modern contraceptive use. Our findings highlight the costs of gender-biased norms and the need for interventions that jointly address gender equity and mental wellness to improve women’s well-being.

Keywords: International; Development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 56
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:aaea25:360992

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.360992

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