A couple of researchers recently published the results of a look at marriage patterns based on the sex of the children in the marriage and came up with a startling conclusion — the fewer male children, the larger the likelihood that a marriage will end in divorce.
Gordon Dahl, with the University of Rochester, and Enrico Moretti, with the University of California at Los Angeles, examined census data on 6 million mothers from over 60 years of census data.
They found that a couple with one daughter is 5 percent more likely to divorce than a couple with one son, and that the more daughters the higher the likelihood of divorce. Couples with three daughters, for example, were 13 percent more likely to divorce than couples with three sons.
Moreover, couples who had only sons were the least likely to divorce, while those who had only daughters were the most likely to divorce.
This follows research by the University of Washington’s Shelly Lundberg which found similar results for single mothers. Single mothers were 42 percent more likely to get married to the father of the child if the child was a boy.
There are a number of possible explanations for this phenomenon with the most obvious being that men appear to have a strong desire to have at least one son. This is consistent with a Gallup poll that for more than 50 years has asked Americans if they could only have one child, would they prefer to have a boy or a girl. Women show little preference, preferring a boy 36 percent to 32 percent for a girl (the remaining having no preference), while men choose a boy 45 percent to 19 percent (the remaining having no preference).
Sources:
Oh, No: It’s a Girl! Steven Landsburg, Slate, October 2, 2003.
Boys help make dads stay. Sarah Baxter and Judith O’Reilly, The Sunday Times (Australia), October 13, 2003.
It’s a Girl! (Will the Economy Suffer?) David Leonhardt, New York Times, October 26, 2003.
Do daughters cause divorce? The Age (Australia), November 13, 2003.