I like this article from The Economist about how het couples who have sons are more likely to stay together than those who have daughters, and the way fathers think of their sons vs. their daughters, because it basically provides confirmation and statistics for stuff we all notice anecdotally.
Gordon Dahl at the University of California, San Diego and Enrico Moretti at the University of California, Berkeley noticed more than a decade ago that men are more likely to marry, and stay married to, women who bore them sons rather than daughters. In an analysis of American census data, they found that men were more inclined to propose to their partners if they discovered that a baby in utero was a boy, and they were less prone to getting a divorce if the first child was a boy rather than a girl. In the event of divorce, men with sons were more likely to get custody [ie to ask for custody], and women with daughters were less likely to remarry. […] This effect can be seen in data on households across a number of rich countries, which show that adolescent boys are more likely than girls to live with both biological parents.
Highlights:
“Results from the most recent poll, in 2011, were startlingly similar to those from the first [from the 1940s]: Americans said they favour boys over girls by a margin of 12 percentage points. This preference is driven mainly by men; women are largely agnostic.”
“Mothers usually lavish the same amount of time on their sons and daughters, at least when they are younger, whereas fathers devote more to sons from the get-go.” A study found that “fathers were twice as likely to take paternity leave for a son than a daughter”, and “married fathers with a child between six and 12 years old spent nearly 40 more minutes per day with sons than with daughters. In married families with two children of the same sex, fathers with sons spent between 22 and 27 minutes more per day on child care, and said they had less leisure time than those with daughters.”
“This extra help has a measurable impact on the quality of a marriage. When Giuliano delved into the reasons why more couples with a son stayed together after three years than those with a daughter, she found that fathers of boys were not only more likely to say they were excited to become a parent, but also more helpful around the home. Mothers of boys, in turn, were more likely to praise their husbands as fathers, and were happier in their relationships than those with only girls.”
“Sons also seem to push fathers to be more productive. Studies of Americans and Germans born after 1950 found that having a child of either sex spurred fathers to bring home more bacon, but the difference between a son and a daughter was considerable: nearly 110 hours a year for Germans and around 70 hours for Americans”, which suggests that fathers are “keener to provide for families with sons. Parents of sons seem not just to earn more but also to spend more. An analysis of American consumer expenditure data from the 1990s found that married couples with one son aged 18 or younger spent 4-7% more on housing than those with a daughter, and consumed more of everything from plane tickets to meals in restaurants. Intriguingly, families with sons also spent more on “women’s goods” such as jewellery and personal services (eg, manicures and hair salons), indicating that mothers benefit when there is a boy around.”
“Men are much more gendered in their behaviour, and in their expectations of the behaviour of their kids, than women are”
A dad saying “I’ve taken my daughter to ballgames, but she doesn’t really know the difference between basketball and baseball. If she was a boy, I have this feeling that it would’ve been easier to interest her in those things.”
Another dad saying men want a son so they can have a friend because men are incapable of making friends? and women can’t read the newspaper over breakfast? (”The possibility of shaping [my son’s] preferences to match mine is attractive. It’s why we play sports together, why we read together. I’m already envisioning trying to get him to read the newspaper over breakfast. I think that there’s a very significant desire for friendship that’s heightened for fathers with sons given how few other outlets we have to create friendships.”)
One man was relieved to have a daughter because having a son would have made him nervous about having to “constantly prove his masculinity around him” men are honestly such a joke
A mum saying “I have two daughters. When I asked my husband if he thinks this made a difference in how much he helped out, he said, ‘Yeah, I probably would feel more of a sense of responsibility if we had a son.’ It actually hadn’t even occurred to me before.”
I don’t post/check on Tumblr much anymore but I came across this and had to put my highly-specialized postgraduate education to use and say something!!
The Dahl and Moretti study referenced in the article has been provocative but kind of overhyped by media coverage for the wrong reasons. Their grand point is that there is a preference for sons over daughters in the U.S., which is kind of a “duh” point, but they make this argument by saying that first-born daughters cause divorce more than sons do. But this article shows that this small gender effect might not really be real! Because there is actually differential chances of survival through pregnancy for males and females! The stress and conflict that comes with an unstable relationships is much more consequential for male fetuses than female ones, so daughters are slightly more likely to be born into high-conflict relationships. And surprise, high-conflict relationships are more likely to end in divorce. The effects of stress on gender ratios at birth are tiny, but so are the effects of first-born’s gender on divorce. Put inelegantly, boy fetuses are kinda weaker than girl fetuses, so they’re less likely to be born into unstable relationships.
So overall, yeah, I’m sure fathers treat sons and daughters differently and there is a preference for sons, but the science of “daughters cause divorce” isn’t really sound. First-born daughters, you did not cause your parents’ divorce!! Still #girlproblems, but a different kind of #girlproblems.
