Male Child Preference and Fertility Rates

A recent article in the economist entitled ‘gendercide’ caught my eye today. 

http://www.economist.com/world/international/displayStory.cfm?story_id=15636231&source=hptextfeature

The article addresses the increasing male to female ratio in certain cultures and regions and how that relates to China’s one child policy.  However, it made me think more generally about the impact of gender preferences on population growth more globally.  There have been a number of studies on the impact gender preference has on fertility, and of the ones I could find online, all concluded a link between increased fertility in families where the gender sequence begins with one or more female children (i.e. parents tend to choose to have another child if their first children are not male).

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=1384700

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=1636184

http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.3101/1098-7096-70.1.56?journalCode=kyac

Another article I found supporting this also concluded that son preference became more prominent in areas undergoing modernization as a result of smaller families (I should also note here that Ms Das Gupta in the economist article argues that this social norm does disappear with modernisation, but it takes time).  This would of course indicate that male child preference can act as an opposing force to declining fertility rates. Unfortunately I could not access the original PDF for the report, and have instead had to rely on google’s cache

http://74.125.155.132/scholar?q=cache:FS2dPsTJux8J:scholar.google.com/+male+child+preference+and+fertility&hl=en&as_sdt=2001&as_ylo=2008

The economist article goes on to note that South Korea has been effective in addressing its problem of male child preference through anti-discrimination laws and media campaigns.

The generally accepted view is that there are just a few components needed to (ethically) address population growth: family planning and modern contraceptive methods, female empowerment and female education.  However, the above articles would suggest that a more comprehensive reform of the cultural and societal role and status of women is needed to eliminate gender discrimination.  This would lower fertility rates by removing the incentive to have children to ensure you have a male child.  However, it would also reduce the occurrence of child related atrocities reported, such as those that have come out of China in recent years.  The knock-on effect would be a weakening of the arguments of those who oppose ethical approaches to population limitation.