Using Life Satisfaction Data to Measure Parents' Child Gender Preferences

Anna Barbeta-Margarit, Seema Jayachandran and Suanna Oh

No 21130, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: Can questions about life satisfaction be used to measure parental preferences for daughters versus sons? Daughter preference has rarely been documented in the literature, even in matrilineal settings. One possible reason is that the commonly used measures of parental gender preference, such as fertility-stopping rules and sex ratio at birth, are ill-suited to high-fertility settings. We instead assess maternal preferences in Malawi by examining the life satisfaction of women who currently have one child, comparing those with a daughter to those with a son. We find that in matrilineal (but not patrilineal) households, having a daughter increases mothers' life satisfaction, relative to having a son.

JEL-codes: I31 J13 J16 N47 O12 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-02
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