PurposeThis paper aims to understand the motivations behind married men preferring sons and to quantify the association between a couple’s stated son preferences. Son preference is an endemic problem in India. With half a million female foetuses aborted each year, the root causes of son preference in India have been widely studied. Little is known, however, on how couples mutually decide on their desired child sex-ratio.Design/methodology/approachUsing data from the third National Family and Health Survey, the authors apply three-stage least square and optimal general method of moment methods to demonstrate association. Robustness checks are performed on plausibly exogenous instrumental variables and selection issues in the marriage market.FindingsThe authors show that their spouse's son preference is by far the most significant factor associated with a person's own stated son preference. The association between spouse's stated son preference is observed only for couples being married for three to five years. It is postulated that this is the critical period when sex-selective abortion decisions are being made.Originality/valueThe focus of existing empirical studies is nearly always on the mother's son preference only. The hypothesis is that spouses mutually influence each other’s preferences and models estimating determinants of son preference should include preferences of both spouses. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first attempt to understand the motivations of married men towards preferring sons and quantify the association between spouse's stated son preference and respondent's stated son preference.

中文翻译：

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配偶会影响对方对儿子的偏好吗？

目的本文旨在了解已婚男性偏爱儿子的动机，并量化夫妇所陈述的儿子偏爱之间的关联。重男轻女是印度的一个普遍问题。每年有 50 万女性胎儿流产，印度重男轻女的根本原因已被广泛研究。然而，对于夫妻如何相互决定他们想要的孩子性别比例知之甚少。设计/方法/方法使用来自第三次全国家庭和健康调查的数据，作者应用三阶段最小二乘法和最优一般矩方法来计算显示关联。稳健性检查是对看似合理的外生工具变量和婚姻市场中的选择问题进行的。结果作者表明，他们的配偶 到目前为止，儿子的偏好是与一个人自己陈述的儿子偏好相关的最重要的因素。仅在结婚三到五年的夫妇中观察到配偶声明的儿子偏好之间的关联。据推测，这是做出性别选择性堕胎决定的关键时期。原创性/价值现有实证研究的重点几乎总是只关注母亲的儿子偏好。该假设是配偶相互影响对方的偏好，估计儿子偏好的决定因素的模型应该包括配偶双方的偏好。据作者所知，这是第一次尝试了解已婚男性偏爱儿子的动机，并量化配偶陈述的儿子偏好与受访者之间的关联。