Resource information
Strong boy-bias and its consequences for
young and unborn girls have been widely documented for Asia.
This paper considers a country in Sub-Saharan Africa and
finds that parental gender preferences do affect fertility
behavior and shape traditional social institutions with
negative effects on adult women's health and
well-being. Using individual-level data for Nigeria, the
paper shows that, compared to women with first-born sons,
women with first-born daughters have (and desire) more
children and are less likely to use contraceptives. Women
with daughters among earlier-born children are also more
likely to have shorter birth intervals, a behavior medically
known to increase the risk of child and maternal mortality.
Moreover, they are more likely to end up in a polygynous
union, to be divorced, and to be head of the household. The
preference for sons is also supported by child fostering
patterns in which daughters are substitutes for foster
girls, while the same does not hold for sons and foster
boys. These results can partly explain excess female
mortality among adult women in Sub-Saharan Africa.
