Building: Main Venue Building
Room: foyer
Date: 2017-02-08 03:30 PM – 04:30 PM
Last modified: 2017-01-23
Abstract
Son preference has been influencing fertility and familial behaviors for centuries. Prenatal sex selection is gathering growing attention, both for its rising scale and for its paradoxical character: unlike son-targeting continued childbearing and postnatal discrimination, abortions of female fetuses make use of technological supply and women’s reproductive rights. Which role do the economic development and the gender development at the societal level play in the persistence of son preference?
A country-level econometric analysis tests the same gender and socio-economic correlates on indicators of pre- and post-natal discrimination, i.e. sex ratio at birth (depicting the prevalence of sex selective abortions) and excess female mortality under 5 years of age (describing the extent of daughters’ neglect). A sample of 114 countries is collected in order to adopt a global perspective.
Results suggest that while postnatal discrimination is associated with restricted women’s freedom and agency at the societal level, countries affected by prenatal sex selection depict greater levels of living standards and gender participation, yet lack social security and protection schemes for its citizens. These preliminary results build on the hypothesis that sons are still needed in Asian families as a form of insurance against income vulnerability.