Child Gender and the Risk of Divorce

Abstract

Very few studies have dealt with the role of children’s gender on divorce rates. However, this was first highlighted by the pioneering research by Morgan, Lye, and Condran [1]. The authors assume that the birth of girls contributes to lower marriage stability than that of sons. However, it should be kept in mind that children’s gender cannot directly affect marital stability because parents cannot determine the sex of their progenies at birth. This important aspect is not taken up by Morgan, even though they explain the role of the sex of children on marriage stability with the preference of sons over daughters. In this study, the focus is on the analysis of gender preference structures and their influence is investigated on the risk of divorce by means of data from the Family Survey. An analysis of the theoretical background of several studies reveals that the issue of children’s gender and divorce rates can be linked with an underlying preference among parents for a specific gender in their children. If children of the preferred gender are born, the divorce rates should be lower than compared to cases of the birth of non-preferred gender. On the basis of the data gathered from Family Survey, several hypotheses on gender preferences and related gender-specific divorce rates have been formulated. Though the results partially confirm the hypotheses, they also offer important implications for further investigations into gender-preference structures and divorce rates.