Abstract
The preference for a son at birth is one of the key issues of demographic studies conducted in less-developed countries; however, exploration of preference for sex of children among women in Nepal is rare. This paper estimates the likelihood of preference for a son or a daughter using the 2016 Nepal Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) data, which contains a nationally representative sample of 12,862 Nepalese women. A multinomial logistic regression analysis shows that son and daughter preferences vary widely across ethnicities, educational and economic status, and rural-urban region. Regarding ethnic origin, women from the Hill Janajati (the largest ethnic minority group that consists of many sub-ethnic groups) prefer daughters more than the top two caste groups, the Hill Brahman and Chhetri, whereas the Terai Brahman, Terai Dalit, Muslim, and other ethnic minority women prefer sons more than the top two caste groups do. Similarly, less educated, poorer, and rural women prefer a son, unlike more educated, richer, and urban women in general. Women who desire more of either sex end up with more children in their household.
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Notes
Some other literature uses different terms and numbers, such as Bongaarts and Guilmoto (2015: 241) stating 105-106 as the “natural level” of sex ratio at birth (SRB). However, this variation does not make any difference to our analysis.
As our respondents are women, we refer to the preference for sex of children as “women’s preferences” or “women prefer” throughout the paper. However, it should be noted that both parents (and to some extent grandparents) are involved in the pregnancy decision, and women’s preference is affected significantly by their spouse, parents, and society. Therefore, women’s preference referred in this study can be considered as parent’s preference or the general preference of society.
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Funding
This study was funded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Sciences (JSPS) under the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C) (grant number 15K03412) and the University of Tsukuba’s Internal Research Fund.
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Sapkota, J.B., Paudel, D.B., Neupane, P. et al. Preference for Sex of Children Among Women in Nepal. Glob Soc Welf 6, 69–78 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40609-018-0117-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40609-018-0117-9