ABSTRACT

The paper considers son preference effects оn actual fertility behaviour in Kyrgyzstan, a post-Soviet country of Central Asia. Using data from the DHS2012 and DHS1997, I argue that risks of transitions to parities from the second to the fifth are significantly higher among women with no sons. Furthermore, the relation of risks of parity progressions to sex composition of children already born is not generally stronger in families with strict gender asymmetries. Attempting to explain this, I show that in such families, contraceptive use is less frequent – and that could complicate the implementation of son preference in such families and weaken their expected contrast with other families in the role of son preference for fertility outcomes. The possibility also is discussed that son preference may be supported by factors not related to family-internal norms, such as the need for all families to have a male heir for securing family wealth.

摘要

该论文考虑了男孩偏好对中亚后苏联国家吉尔吉斯斯坦实际生育行为的影响。使用 DHS2012 和 DHS1997 的数据，我认为没有儿子的女性从第二胎过渡到第五胎的风险要高得多。此外，在具有严格性别不对称的家庭中，胎次递增风险与已出生儿童的性别构成之间的关系通常并不强。为了解释这一点，我表明在这样的家庭中，避孕药具的使用频率较低——这可能会使此类家庭中男孩偏好的实施变得复杂，并削弱他们与其他家庭在男孩偏好对生育结果的作用方面的预期对比。