Volume 2 - Article 1 | Pages –  

Gender Preferences for Children in Europe: Empirical Results from 17 FFS Countries

By Karsten Hank, Hans-Peter Kohler

Abstract

Gender preferences may have substantial implications for a couple’s fertility behavior. However, there is only limited empirical research investigating this subject in modern Western societies. In this paper, data from the Fertility and Family Surveys are used to compare 17 European countries with respect to their gender preferences for children. Despite substantial regional heterogeneity across Europe, our results show a strong tendency towards a preference for a mixed sex composition (if there is any preference at all).
However, we found some unexpected indication for a girl preference in the Czech Republic, Lithuania, and Portugal. Because socioeconomic conditions and family policies, which are important factors in explaining different fertility levels, are not related to a specific gender of children, we argue that cultural factors are of major importance for different gender preferences.

Author's Affiliation

• Karsten Hank - Universität zu Köln, Germany EMAIL
• Hans-Peter Kohler - University of Pennsylvania, United States of America EMAIL

Other articles by the same author/authors in Demographic Research

Marital dissolutions and changes in mental health: Evidence from rural Malawi
Volume 44 - Article 41

Same-sex relationship experiences and expectations regarding partnership and parenthood
Volume 39 - Article 25

The population-level impact of public-sector antiretroviral therapy rollout on adult mortality in rural Malawi
Volume 36 - Article 37

Intergenerational Transfers in the Era of HIV/AIDS: Evidence from Rural Malawi
Volume 27 - Article 27

The Likoma Network Study: Context, data collection and initial results
Volume 21 - Article 15

Subjective expectations in the context of HIV/AIDS in Malawi
Volume 20 - Article 31

The Malawi Diffusion and Ideational Change Project 2004-06: Data collection, data quality, and analysis of attrition
Volume 20 - Article 21

Overestimating HIV infection:: The construction and accuracy of subjective probabilities of HIV infection in rural Malawi
Volume 20 - Article 6

Understanding parental gender preferences in advanced societies: Lessons from Sweden and Finland
Volume 17 - Article 6

A summary of Special Collection 1: Social Interactions and HIV/AIDS in Rural Africa
Volume 9 - Article 12

The geographic context of male nuptiality in western Germany during the 1980s and 1990s
Volume 7 - Article 15

The Fertility Pattern of Twins and the General Population Compared: Evidence from Danish Cohorts 1945-64
Volume 6 - Article 14

Tempo-Adjusted Period Parity Progression Measures:: Assessing the Implications of Delayed Childbearing for Cohort Fertility in Sweden, the Netherlands and Spain
Volume 6 - Article 7

Tempo-Adjusted Period Parity Progression Measures, Fertility Postponement and Completed Cohort Fertility
Volume 6 - Article 6

Attrition in Longitudinal Household Survey Data: Some Tests for Three Developing-Country Samples
Volume 5 - Article 4

Changes in Swedish Women’s Individual Activity Status and the Subsequent Risk of Giving Birth in the 1980s and 1990s: An Extension of Studies by Gunnar Andersson and Britta Hoem
Volume 4 - Article 4

Frailty Modelling for Adult and Old Age Mortality: The Application of a Modified DeMoivre Hazard Function to Sex Differentials in Mortality
Volume 3 - Article 8

Empirical Assessments of Social Networks, Fertility and Family Planning Programs: Nonlinearities and their Implications
Volume 3 - Article 7

Talking about AIDS: The influence of communication networks on individual risk perceptions of HIV/AIDS infection and favored protective behaviors in South Nyanza District, Kenya
Special Collection 1 - Article 13

Introduction to "Research on Demographic Aspects of HIV/AIDS in Rural Africa"
Special Collection 1 - Article 1

Most recent similar articles in Demographic Research

Educational trends in cohort fertility by birth order: A comparison of England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland
Volume 51 - Article 36    | Keywords: birth order, cohort analysis, cross-national study, England, family size, fertility, Northern Ireland, parity, Scotland, Wales

Higher incomes are increasingly associated with higher fertility: Evidence from the Netherlands, 2008–2022
Volume 51 - Article 26    | Keywords: fertility, income, inequalities, Netherlands, parenthood

The short- and long-term determinants of fertility in Uruguay
Volume 51 - Article 10    | Keywords: fertility, panel data, stages of female reproductive life, time series, Uruguay

The big decline: Lowest-low fertility in Uruguay (2016–2021)
Volume 50 - Article 16    | Keywords: adolescent fertility, birth order, fertility, Latin America, ultra-low fertility, Uruguay

Cohort fertility of immigrants to Israel from the former Soviet Union
Volume 50 - Article 13    | Keywords: age at first birth, assimilation, cohort analysis, fertility, immigration, parity, religiosity