Son preference

Definition

As a qualitative phenomenon

Son preference refers to a phenomenon where women, or families, prefer sons to daughters. This could manifest itself in a number of ways:

1. Undertaking sex-selective abortions: conceive a child, then abort the fetus if it is female.
2. Having children until there is at least one son.
3. Having a preference for sons when adopting.

If sufficiently widespread, (1) can lead to a significant imbalance in the sex ratio of the population. (2) is unlikely to lead to a population-wide imbalance in the sex ratio, but it can lead to a reduction in the diversity of family structure: for instance, families with two elder daughters and one youngest son will be more frequent than families with three sons.

Some countries where systemwide son preference have been observed, to the extent of enabling significant sex-selective abortion, are India, China, and South Korea.

Daughter preference has also been observed in many contexts, notably in the context of adoption in First World countries.