Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.10, 2018

 

The Dynamic Relationship between Gender Preferences for Children and the Sex Ratio at Birth, 1979-2017

(Abstract)

 

Hou Jiawei, Gu Baochang and Zhang Yinfeng

 

The sex ratio at birth is a basic indicator of gender equality at the beginning of life. Since the mid-1980s, China’s sex ratio at birth has deviated from the normal value, and this has become more marked over time. Since 2008, the trend has been downwards, but it has still not returned to the normal range. Preference for boys is commonly considered to be a contributing factor in sex ratio at birth, but our cross-sectional meta-analysis of 152 surveys shows that in the last four decades there has been a marked decline in such preference; the ideal number of boys per family fell from 0.6 in 1979-1989 to 0.4 in 2010-2017, while boys as a proportion of the ideal number of children fell from 34.5 percent to 27.9 percent. This was accompanied by a weakening of preference for girls. The whole social atmosphere is shifting toward absence of gender preference. The influence of the gender preference to the sex ratio at birth lies in the different speed of the weakening of preference for boys and that for girls, thus brings about “a change in relative values.” When the speed of the weakening of preference for boys lags behind that for girls, we will witness the weakening of preference for boys and the rise in the sex ratio at birth. As the speed of the weakening of preference for boys keeps up with that for girls, the sex ratio at birth will reach a balance.