Boys Seem to be Losing in the Parenting Game: Gender Preference

 Evolution has tried its hardest to produce equal numbers of male and female babies.  However, humans are cultural animals, and they develop preferences that effectively alter the ratio by abortion, infanticide or other means of disposal of an unwanted gender.  For most of recorded human history male cultural dominance has produced a tendency to view a male offspring as more important than a female one.  A fascinating article in The Economist, More and more parents around the world prefer girls to boys, tells us that this attitude is changing.

In some developing cultures, male preference has created an overabundance of males, or a cohort of disappeared females.  This was a common situation in countries such as China and India, but recent data from developing nations indicates that fewer girls are disappearing and gender ratios are approaching the natural value.  That is definitely a significant and pleasing discovery.   However, recent data from wealthier countries seems to indicate that it may be part of a trend favoring girl children over boys.

 When women wanted to revolt against male domination they took to the streets to protest their plight and worked and studied hard to compete with men for jobs and other positions.  As girls/women became more prominent in society’s activities, many boys/men seem to be unwilling or unable to compete. 

“The growing desire for daughters may also reflect the social ills that afflict men in much of the rich world. Men still dominate business and politics and earn more for the same work almost everywhere—but they are also more likely to go off the rails. In many rich countries, teenage boys are more likely to be both perpetrators and victims of violent crimes. They also are more likely to commit suicide. Boys trail girls at all stages of education and are expelled from school at far higher rates. They are less likely than women to attend university.”

This has led to many activities aimed at helping boys become more functional members of society. 

“A telling sign of the general alarm about boys in the rich world is the interest politicians have begun taking in the subject. Last year Britain’s Parliament opened an investigation into male underachievement in schools. Norway has gone a step further, launching a Men’s Equality Commission in 2022. Its final report in 2024 concluded that tackling challenges for boys and men would be the ‘next step’ in gender equality.”

“Legislators across America’s political spectrum are making similar noises. Utah’s governor, Spencer Cox, a Republican, has created a task-force on male well-being; Maryland’s governor, Wes Moore, a Democrat, has committed to ‘targeted solutions to uplift our men and boys’; Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer, a woman (and a Democrat), wants to get more young men into Michigan’s colleges and vocational courses.”

Prospective parents are aware of these issues, and they seem to take them into account when considering having a child.  The article provides plenty of evidence that preferences are strongly tilting towards girl babies

“In the rich world…evidence is growing of an emerging preference for girls. Between 1985 and 2003, the share of South Korean women who felt it ‘necessary’ to have a son plunged from 48% to 6%, according to South Korea’s statistics agency. Nearly half now want daughters. Similarly in Japan, polls suggest a clear preference for girls. The Japanese National Fertility Survey, a poll conducted every five years, shows that in 1982, 48.5% of married couples wanting only one child said they would prefer a daughter. By 2002, 75% did.”

“In America parents with only daughters were once more likely than parents with only sons to keep having children, presumably to try for a boy. That was the thesis set out in a study published in 2008 by Gordon Dahl of the University of California, San Diego, and Enrico Moretti at the University of California, Berkeley. The report, which analysed census data from 1960 to 2000, concluded that parents in America favoured sons.”

“That preference has since reversed, however. A study in 2017 led by Francine Blau, an economist at Cornell University, found that having a girl first is now associated with lower fertility rates in America. The research, which uses data from 2008 to 2013, suggested a preference for girls among married couples.”

Adoption and IVF provide opportunities for prospective parents to express their gender preferences.

“Adoptive parents, too, tend to want girls. Those in America were willing to pay as much as $16,000 to secure a daughter, according to a study published in 2010. In 2009 Abbie Goldberg of Clark University asked more than 200 American couples hoping to adopt whether they wanted a boy or a girl. Although many of them said they did not mind, heterosexual men and women and lesbians all leaned on average towards girls; only gay men preferred boys.”

“IVF and other fertility treatments are also becoming cheaper, more effective and so more common. In America, where sex-selective IVF is legal, around a quarter of all IVF attempts now lead to live births, compared with 14% during the 1990s. Some 90% of couples who use a technique called sperm-sorting to select the sex of their child said they wanted a balance of sons and daughters. Even so, in practice 80% of them opted for girls. If that imbalance endures even as such methods spread, America’s sex ratios will soon start to skew.”

The article also provided this interesting perspective on the factors that enter into child gender preference.

“Competitive parents may see girls as more likely to reflect well on them than boys. After all, boys develop fine motor skills later than girls. They are also worse at sitting still. Those are drawbacks in a world of toddlers’ music lessons and art classes. ‘We no longer have trophy wives,’ says Richard Reeves, president of the American Institute for Boys and Men, which seeks to remedy male social problems. ‘We have trophy kids’.”

If you are someone who sees your child as an indicator of your status as a human being and as a parent, you are more likely to look good if you choose a girl baby.

You can learn a little about a lot of things or you can learn a lot about a very few things. Guess which is the most fun.