Popul Res Policy Rev (2007) 26:1–29

DOI 10.1007/s11113-006-9017-2

Explaining son preference in rural India: the

independent role of structural versus individual factors

Rohini P. Pande Æ Nan Marie Astone

Received: 21 November 2003 / Accepted: 12 May 2005 / Published online: 14 March 2007

Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2007

Abstract Much research has been done on demographic manifestations of

son preference, particularly girls’ excess mortality; however, there is less
research that focuses on son preference itself. This paper analyzes the
determinants of son preference in rural India. We separate the independent,
relative effects of characteristics of individual women and their households,
village opportunities for women and village development, and social norms.
We look at both socioeconomic and sociocultural variables. Finally, we
examine whether predictors of son preference differ by desired family size.
Our data come from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) India,
1992–1993. We use an ordered logit model, with dummy variables for state
of residence. Our analysis shows that women’s education, particularly at
secondary and higher levels, is consistently and significantly associated with
weaker son preference, regardless of desired family size. Once factors
measuring social norms, such as marriage customs, caste and religion, are
included, economic wealth and women’s employment at household or village
levels are not significant. Media access remains significant, suggesting an
influence of ‘‘modernizing’’ ideas. Among social factors, caste and religion
are associated with son preference but, once state of residence is controlled
for, marriage patterns and cultivation patterns are insignificant. The strength
and significance for son preference of many determinants differs by desired

R. P. Pande (&)
International Center for Research on Women, 1717 Massachusetts Ave., N.W., Suite 302,
Washington, DC 20036, USA
e-mail: rpande@icrw.org

N. M. Astone
Department of Population and Family Health Sciences, The Johns Hopkins School of
Hygiene and Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA

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2 R. P. Pande, N. M. Astone

family size. Our results suggest that policy makers seeking to influence son
preference need to identify and target different policy levers to women in
different fertility and social contexts, rather than try an approach of one size
that fits all.

Keywords Discrimination Æ Gender Æ India Æ Inequality Æ Son preference

Introduction

‘‘May he (Pragâpati) elsewhere afford the birth of a female, but here he shall
bestow a man!’’ This hymn (Atharva Veda, Book VII, verse 11, translation by
Bloomfield, 1897) is an ancient Indian charm for women to give birth to sons.
Dating to circa 800 B.C.E., it reflects a sentiment that persists in India. Much
research has been done on demographic manifestations of this son preference,
particularly girls’ excess mortality and, recently, sex-selective abortion. There
is less research on son preference itself. In this paper we address this gap by
empirically examining son preference directly as the outcome of interest.
Although scholars are aware that gender inequality arises from systemic
factors, they are often unable to quantitatively disentangle the social struc-
tures and norms that are the ultimate cause of gender inequality, and that
contribute to the perseverance of son preference, from the individual deter-
minants of son preference. In our analysis, we test the independent effect of
both structural and social factors that set the norms for gender preference, and
characteristics of individual women, their households and their immediate
communities that influence how they respond to these norms.

Background

Son preference and discrimination against girl children are widespread in the
Middle East and North Africa (Yount, 2001) and in South and East Asia
(Chan & Yeoh, 2002). In Asia, this has been documented in China (Banister,
2003), Korea (Park & Cho, 1995), Vietnam (Belanger, 2002), Nepal (Leone,
Matthews, & Zuanna, 2003), and Bangladesh (Bairagi, 2001), as well as India
(Mishra, Roy, & Retherford, 2004), the setting for our study.
In the past, researchers interested in son preference have had as their
central concern its adverse consequences, particularly excess female infant
and child mortality or the poor health of girl children relative to boys (Basu,
1989; Das Gupta, 1987; Das Gupta & Shuzhuo, 1999; Makinson, 1994; Miller,
1981; Pande, 2003; Pande & Yazbeck, 2003, among others). Others have
examined the role of son preference in slowing the transition to low fertility as
couples bear children until they have sufficient boys (Arnold, Minja, & Roy
1998; Clark 2000; Das Gupta & Bhat 1997; Leone et al., 2003; Yount, Lang-
sten, & Hill, 2000, among others). The advent of technology permitting pre-

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Explaining son preference in rural India 3

natal sex selection has shifted the focus of scholars and policymakers to
sex-selective abortion and consequent distorted sex ratios as manifestations of
son preference (Arnold, Kishor, & Roy, 2002; Murphy, 2003; Oomman &
Ganatra, 2002).
In the Indian setting, distorted sex ratios have a long history. Over the
100-year period from 1901 to 2001 the population sex ratios from Indian
censuses (expressed in India as the number of women per 1,000 men) have
shown more or less a continuous decline, from 972 females per 1,000 males in
1901 to 933 females per 1,000 males in 2001 (Banthia, 2001, p. 3).
In this period, the only noticeable aberration was in 1981, when the situa-
tion seemed to reverse with sex ratios becoming somewhat less masculine,
from 931 women per 1,000 men in 1971 to 934 in 1981. Any relief at this
change was cut short, however, by the 1991 census, which showed the lowest
sex ratio of the century, at only 929 women per 1,000 men. Further, between
1981 and 1991, the sex ratio for children between 0 and 6 years of age
decreased at a much faster pace than the overall sex ratio (from 962 girls per
1,000 boys in 1981 to 945 in 1991). The 1991 juvenile sex ratio was lower than
had been reported by any census since at least 1961. The 2001 census shows
that this trend is continuing (Banthia, 2001, pp. 3 & 8).
This drop in the 1991 census, reflecting that the last census of the 20th
century showed the worst sex ratios in this century, resulted in active debate
among academics and policymakers in India and elsewhere about the reasons
for this decline, particularly following as it did on the heels of an apparent
improvement between 1971 and 1981 (Griffiths, Matthews, & Hinde, 2000;
Mayer, 1999). The even more serious drop in the juvenile sex ratio in the
period of the late 1980s and early 1990s adds to the interest in this period,
because it is a time when son preference, as manifested in these distorted sex
ratios, remained high or possibly increased despite other more heartening
economic and social changes such as increasing female literacy.
What determines this strong son preference that affects so many demo-
graphic outcomes, in particular at the point when India faced its worst sex
ratio of the 20th century? In identifying important factors, we take as our lead
both the literature examining the determinants of demographic outcomes
thought to be the result of son preference, as well as the broader literature on
gender inequality in India.

Determinants of son preference

Social norms and structures

Persistent son preference is one of the strongest manifestations of gender

inequality in Indian society. Though there are few studies examining son
preference per se as an outcome of interest, there is substantial research on
gender inequality in South Asia. Many authors argue that gender inequality is
a structural phenomenon, and that patriarchal institutions and norms establish

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4 R. P. Pande, N. M. Astone

patterns and sometimes formal rules for the allocation of material goods,
rights, opportunities and obligations between men and women (Baltiwala,
1994; Cain, 1993; Malhotra & Schuler, 2005; Morgan & Niraula, 1995). In
India, a number of structural factors lay the foundation for gender inequality.
These include kinship and marriage norms, the organization of the agrarian
economy, and rules and rituals associated with caste and religion.
In a path-breaking article in 1983, Dyson and Moore proposed that two
broad differences in Indian kinship patterns—between ‘‘Northern’’ and
‘‘Southern’’ India—largely determine gender inequality and son preference
(Dyson & Moore, 1983). Specifically, in the northern Indian kinship system, as
Dyson and Moore and others (Arnold et al., 1998; Das Gupta, 1995; Kishor,
1995) describe it, marriage is exogamous, that is, spouses must be unrelated
through kin and often by place of birth or residence. Parents of a girl often
have to pay all marriage costs and provide a large dowry. After marriage, a
girl typically becomes a member of her husband’s family and does not have
much interaction with her natal kin. In contrast, the southern kinship pattern
is characterized by endogamous marriage, that is, marriage between certain
types of cousins or within a defined, contiguous geographical area. Women’s
sexuality and freedom of movement are less curtailed, dowry is not a major
marriage transaction, and married daughters are often likely to be on hand to
render social and financial help to their parents.
Recent studies using data from the late 1980s and early 1990s suggest some
blurring of this North–South distinction with regard to gender inequality
(Arnold et al., 1998; Dharmalingam, 1996; Rahman & Rao, 2004). Most
recently, Rahman and Rao (2004), using data from 1995, dispute the idea that
the regional patterns identified by Karve (1965) and Dyson and Moore (1983)
still hold. They call attention to the fact that in modern India, Southern brides
are as likely to pay dowry (and pay as much) as Northern brides, and that
endogamous marriage can result in more inequity between wives and hus-
bands if their prenuptial relationship was already hierarchal (e.g., uncle–niece
matches). This is in accordance with other recent research that finds Indian
girls equally at risk of facing discrimination in health care in the South as the
North (Mishra et al., 2004).
Besides region, religion plays a role in defining appropriate social and
gender norms, which in turn influence son preference. In Hinduism, the major
religion in India, sons are crucial. Among Hindus, a dead parent’s soul can
only attain heaven if that person has a son to light the funeral pyre, and
salvation can be achieved through sons who offer ancestral worship (Vlassof,
1990). Girls and women do have some importance. Giving away a daughter in
marriage (kanyadaan) is considered meritorious (Miller, 1989). Studies
suggest that son preference exists also among other religious groups such as
the Sikhs (Das Gupta, 1987) or the Muslims (Murthy, 1996).
Caste may also be associated with cultural practices that influence women’s
roles, and thus son preference, such that one may expect less son preference
among lower castes and tribals than among high castes. Compared to lower
castes, higher castes have more rigid gender stratification systems, with strictly

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Explaining son preference in rural India 5

enforced rules of seclusion or purdah for women (Mandelbaum, 1988) and

greater use of dowry. Lower caste and tribal women may have fewer
restrictions placed on their movement or employment outside the home
(Srinivas, 1976), often due to economic pressures that force them to earn an
income. Rahman and Rao (2004) find that restrictive cultural practices such as
strictly enforced rules of seclusion or purdah for women are significantly
associated with worse gender equity measured in terms of mobility and some
aspects of household decision-making, though they do not specifically consider
son preference.
Discussions of structural economic determinants of gender equity and son
preference, specifically, the organization of the agrarian economy, follow a
regional theme. In east and south India the main crop is paddy where women
play a key role in weeding, transplantation, harvesting and threshing. In
contrast, in the north and west, wheat and other dry-agriculture crops
predominate, and—particularly where there is irrigation—the work involves
more male-biased ‘‘muscle power’’ (Bardhan, 1974). Researchers have argued
that the higher demand for women’s agricultural labor in rice areas makes
girls and women more valuable than in wheat areas, thus contributing to less
discrimination against girls in rice-growing regions. Recent research supports
the argument that women’s labor force participation has positive effects on
women’s autonomy (Rahman & Rao, 2004).
Finally, inheritance laws that render sons crucial to retain family property
(Agarwal, 1994), and the need for sons so as to exercise power in violent areas
or to assure household security (Dharmalingam, 1996; Oldenburg, 1992), are
also both thought to influence gender inequality and thus son preference.
Research examining these issues is, however, particularly limited.

Village development

The evidence on the effect of village economic development on gender

inequality as manifested in excess girls’ mortality is mixed. Some studies have
shown a worsening of discrimination against girls with greater village devel-
opment (Murthi, Guio, & Dreze, 1995). Others show more positive results. In
an all-India analysis, Kishor (1993) found that after controlling for other
economic, social, and cultural factors, the proportion of the labor force that
was female in a district was significantly and negatively associated with excess
girls’ mortality. Rahman and Rao (2004) found that village development
influenced some gender equity indicators of mobility and decision-making, but
they did not examine son preference or excess girls’ mortality.

Household and individual characteristics

Although the incentives for action ultimately flow from social and economic
structures, the decisions taken to act on a preference for sons occur at the level
of the individual woman and her household. Thus, given social norms, such
decisions are influenced by characteristics of individual women and their

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households such as women’s education, employment, and access to media;

household wealth; and household structure.
A number of studies examine the relationship between household wealth
and excess girls’ mortality (for example, Muhuri & Preston, 1991). Less is
known about the relationship of household wealth with son preference. One
may expect son preference to be lower among women from poorer households
because women may be more of an economic asset in poorer households. For
livelihood reasons, poor households may be less able than wealthier house-
holds to enforce purdah or seclusion for women, thus allowing women to play
a more active economic role than they would in wealthier households (Miller,
1981; Rahman & Rao, 2004). On the other hand, women from wealthy
households may have weaker son preference because there are alternative
sources of economic support, for instance for old age, beyond having sons.
Household structure may matter as well. There is some evidence of dif-
ferences in women’s roles and autonomy in extended compared to nuclear
households that could affect son preference. Typically, in an extended family
older women would have some degree of control over the lives, decisions, and
children of younger women (Barua & Kurz, 2001). In contrast, in a nuclear
household even a young mother is likely to have more autonomy and a more
active role in making decisions regarding herself and her children (Jejeebhoy,
1996). While no studies have directly examined the effect of household
structure on gender preferences, it is possible that son preference is higher in
traditional extended households where roles and opportunities for women are
more constrained compared to those for men, than they are in nuclear
households.
Research suggests a role for women’s employment in lowering son pref-
erence. Cain (1988) argued, for Bangladesh, that where women have an
economic value in the household, son preference will be weaker because it will
no longer be seen as essential for lifetime, particularly old age, security.
Others suggest that working women may have a more egalitarian sex ratio of
child mortality because the fact of working changes gender values through an
increased awareness that girls can potentially contribute an income to the
household; women’s economic participation may also change their own val-
uation of their worth and the worth of their daughters more generally (Basu &
Basu, 1991; Kishor, 1993).
Evidence on the link between women’s education and son preference is less
clear. A woman’s education may change her perception of ‘‘feminine worth,’’
thus decreasing her preference for sons (Bourne & Walker, 1991). Where son
preference is strong, however, maternal education on its own may not be
enough to improve daughters’ worth. This conclusion is based on evidence of
excess girls’ mortality rather than son preference, where gender differentials
are unchanged or worsened among educated compared to non-educated
mothers (Bhuiya & Streatfield, 1991; Das Gupta, 1987).
Recent research suggests that education beyond the primary level may have
a stronger impact than primary education alone on gender equality (Malhotra,
Pande, & Grown, 2003). However, there are few studies that examine the

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Explaining son preference in rural India 7

impact of different levels of women’s education on gender differentials in

mortality or on son preference. Those that do, suggest that levels of maternal
education beyond primary school benefit daughters more than sons
(Govindaswamy & Ramesh, 1996). Primary education, while it might improve
child health and survival in general, may not be enough to engender the
change in the perceived value of women necessary to change son preference.
It is with secondary or higher education that a woman’s belief structure and
the opportunities available to her change sufficiently to decrease the prefer-
ence for sons as her sole means of economic and social support.

The current study

There is little disagreement that individual characteristics and social norms

are both important in understanding gender inequality in India. Nonetheless,
previous research has tended not to examine the relative importance of
individual socioeconomic characteristics compared to the norms and values
that may influence son preference specifically, even though son preference is
such a pervasive reflection of gender inequality in India. The present study
contributes to the literature by focusing on son preference as an outcome of
interest, and conceptualizing an individual’s son preference as emerging
from a complex process that is influenced by factors at many levels—the
society, the household, and the individual. We differentiate simultaneously
the relative and independent importance of these different influences.
Moreover, this study contributes by examining specifically what factors may
have been at play to determine son preference in the time period of the late
1980s and early 1990s, when sex ratios in India were the worst of the 20th
century.

Data and variables

Data

We use data from the rural sample of the National Family Health Survey,
India (NFHS-1), 1992–1993. We focus on the NFHS-1 specifically to examine
factors explaining son preference around the time of the 1991 census. The
NFHS followed the format of the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS),
which are large-scale household surveys conducted in Asia, Africa, and Latin
America. Data are available on individual women, their households, and their
villages. For each Indian state, a multistage systematic stratified sampling
design was adopted, where the primary sampling units were selected
systematically, with probability proportional to size. Households were then
sampled using systematic sampling with equal probability, and all eligible
women in each household were interviewed. National and state-level sampling
weights were created to reflect sampling design (IIPS, 1995).

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8 R. P. Pande, N. M. Astone

For this paper, we use a de jure sample of 50,136 ever-married women between
13 and 49 years of age at the time of the survey who have valid data on our outcome
variable. We chose to use the rural sample because village data are available only
for rural areas. Since about 73% of India’s population was rural at the time (IIPS,
1995, p. xxxi), the results will still be applicable to the majority of the population.
We use the de jure sample (all residents) rather than the de facto sample (all those
who slept in the sampled household the previous night) because detailed house-
hold structure and village data are only available for de jure women.
We combine the data from the NFHS with data on rice and wheat pro-
duction by state between 1989 and 1993. These data were obtained from the
Economic Survey of India, 1994–1995, Directorate of Economics & Statistics,
Department of Agriculture & Cooperation of the Government of India
(Government of India, 1995, p. S-19).

Dependent variable

Respondents were asked the ideal number of children they would want.
Women who had no surviving children were asked the question: ‘‘If you could
choose exactly the number of children to have in your whole life, how many
would that be?’’ Women who had living children at the time of the survey
were asked: ‘‘If you could go back to the time you did not have any children
and could choose exactly the number of children to have in your whole life,
how many would that be?’’ Those who responded to either question with a
number were then asked the follow-up question: ‘‘How many of these children
would you like to be boys and how many would you like to be girls?’’
Responses were entered as a number of boys, girls, either, or other response.
We created an ordered categorical variable that has three categories: zero
when a respondent reports no son preference (including daughter preference,
or a response of ‘‘either’’); one when a respondent reports an ideal of one son
more than the ideal number of daughters; and two when a respondent reports
an ideal of two or more sons more than the ideal number of daughters.
A majority (88.6%) of sample women gave valid numeric responses to
these questions (IIPS, 1995). Women whose characteristics are likely to be
associated with lower son preference (for example, educated women and
women with media access) are more likely to have given a valid numeric
response (Pande, 1999). This could lead us to underestimate the strength of
son preference in the analysis. Some women who may have higher son pref-
erence (those living in a joint family or from middle or high castes, for
example) are also slightly over-represented, and thus the overall direction of
any bias is not clear a priori. Given that almost 90% of sample women gave
valid responses, any bias is expected to be small.

Explanatory variables

Following our question of interest, we conceptualize our explanatory variables

as measures of broad social norms, measures of village development and

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Explaining son preference in rural India 9

opportunities for women, and individual or household characteristics. This

division of the variables is at a conceptual level rather than at the level of the
unit of measurement of the variable. Thus, for example, caste and religion are
conceptualized as variables reflecting broad social norms even though they are
measured, in the survey, at the level of the individual woman.
Exploratory analysis showed that the data support recent research that
suggests a blurring of regional patterns in son preference. Figure 1 shows the
percent of women in each state, by region, who said they would ideally like
more sons than daughters. There continues to be a broad regional pattern in
that the southern states, on average, have lower son preference than states in
the North or Central regions. At the same time, there are wide variations in
son preference by state, within and across the regional classifications that were
defined by Karve (1965) and used—with some modifications—by Dyson and
Moore (1983) and others. For example, Andhra Pradesh in the South, and
several of the states in the East, exhibit similar or higher average levels of son
preference than West Bengal or Himachal Pradesh in the North.
In our multivariate analysis, therefore, we do not include variables for
region. Rather, we control for state-level variation by including a series of
dummy variables for each state. As these state dummies are capturing any
number of unobserved state-level cultural and economic characteristics that
may affect son preference, it is not possible to interpret their effect and we do
not show the coefficients for these dummies in our tables. Their inclusion,
however, reduces the extent to which characteristics of the states that are
correlated with both our explanatory variables and our outcome are biasing
our results.

100
% wanting more sons than daughters

80
Rajas
Bihar
UP
Jammu
Haryana

60
Punjab

MP
Gujarat
Maharash

Arunacha
Manipur
Orissa

Assam

< 20 %
Himachal
WBengal

Mizoram
Andhra

Tripura
Karnatak

40
Nagaland

20 - 40%
Delhi

Goa

41 - 60%
Kerala

Meghalay

20
TN

61% +

0
North Central South East

Fig. 1 Son preference by state and region

123
10 R. P. Pande, N. M. Astone

We include measures of religion and caste to capture norms and beliefs that
are associated with these social systems. We categorize religion as Hindu,
Muslim, or ‘‘other.’’ Caste is divided into low castes (including untouchables),
tribes, and ‘‘other,’’ where ‘‘other’’ includes high-caste Hindus and non-Hin-
dus. The research is inconclusive as to the relative strength of son preference
across religions, and we remain agnostic about the direction of our results for
this variable. We expect women from lower castes and from tribal groups to
have lower son preference than high caste women.
To specifically capture the effect of marriage customs, we include two vil-
lage endogamy variables as indicators of local marriage norms, one measuring
the proportion of women who marry relatives (kinship endogamy) and one for
the proportion who marry within the village (territorial endogamy). For both,
we create weighted continuous variables, with an exponential weight chosen
to bound the proportion between one and zero. The closer the proportion is to
one, the more endogamous the village. Some sample villages have a small
number of women only; however, the data allow us to group villages into
(larger) districts. Thus, the final variable for each of these indicators is a
weighted sum of the village-level and district-level aggregate for that indicator
(see Pande, 1999 for details). We expect endogamy to be inversely associated
with son preference.
To measure the agrarian ecology argument for son preference, we examine
the effect on gender preference of the extent of rice and wheat production.
Using data from the Economic Survey of India 1994–1995, we created con-
tinuous variables to measure the proportion of rice, and the proportion of
wheat, to total foodgrain production averaged over 1989–1990 to 1992–1993,
in each state. Women in rice-growing areas are expected to have weaker son
preference than others.
To assess the importance of village social and economic development, we
measure village-level opportunities for women, as well as general village
development. We use two continuous variables to measure village opportu-
nities for women, namely, the proportion of literate women in a village (to
measure female education) and the proportion of women in a village
employed outside of the home (to measure female employment). These are
created in a similar manner as the endogamy variables. Measures of village
development are whether a village has access to transport such as an
all-weather road, bus station or rail station (to measure accessibility to the
outside world), whether the village has at least a middle school (on the
assumption that, when there is a school in the village girls are more likely to
go to school which, in turn, could change their mother’s valuation of girls
versus boys), and the number of other facilities in the village such as a bank,
shop, or cinema (as an indicator of wider village economic development). We
expect all indicators of village development to be inversely associated with son
preference.
We use two household wealth measures. First, we create an index that is a
composite of variables describing consumer durables and housing quality,
measured in household quintiles (Filmer & Pritchett, 2001). Second, we

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Explaining son preference in rural India 11

include a variable for household ownership of land, and expect women from
landed families to have higher son preference than others. Further, we
examine residence in an extended household defined as one that includes
members in addition to the respondent, her husband and her unmarried minor
children, and we expect women in extended families to have higher son
preference than those in nuclear households.
Our indicators for women’s characteristics are women’s level of education
(distinguishing between primary school only; up to middle school; secondary
school and higher); women’s employment (broadly defined as any work
outside of housework); women’s cash earnings; and women’s weekly access to
radio or TV and monthly access to cinema (as broad indicators of women’s
exposure to new ideas). We expect highly educated women, those earning
cash, and those with greater media exposure to have lower son preference
than others. We include mother’s age as a control variable.
Reported gender preferences may be affected by the current sex compo-
sition of children and family size (defined as the current number of surviving
children), either as an ex-post rationalization of actual family size and com-
position, or as the result of a change—either conscious or subconscious—in
preferences based on childbearing experience. Thus we control for actual sex
composition and family size in our analyses.

Statistical model: ordered logit

The ordered logit model is used when the outcome variable is categorized on
an ordinal scale, ordered by some conceptual or subjective criteria (McCul-
lagh & Nelder, 1989) as in our case. Following the notation of McCullagh and
Nelder (1989), the probability of a response for any one category of an out-
come Y can be expressed as p1,...pk for k possible values of Y. If the categories
are ordered, as in an ordered logit, we can consider cumulative response
probabilities pj = Pr(Y £ j) rather than the category probabilities pj. These
cumulative response probabilities can be interpreted as the probability of an
outcome up to a certain category, and can be written as:

c1 ¼ p1 ; c2 ¼ p1 þ p2 ; . . . ; ck ¼ 1:

Then, the ordered logit model can be expressed as:

!
c 1 ð xÞ
log ¼ hj
bT x; j ¼ 1; . . . ; k
1
1
c j ð xÞ

for k categories of the response variable, where cj = Pr(Y £ j|x) is the

cumulative probability up to and including j, for a covariate vector x, and hj is
the cut-point for the jth category. Taking an exponential of both sides of the
above equation gives the odds of falling into category j or lower versus falling

123
12 R. P. Pande, N. M. Astone

into a category higher than j, with a given set of covariates. The odds ratio for
a unit change in a particular covariate, say from x = x1 to x = x2, is given by:


cj ðx1 Þ= 1
cj ðx1 Þ

 ¼ expð
bx ðx1
x2 ÞÞ
cj ðx2 Þ= 1
cj ðx2 Þ

where bx is the coefficient of interest. The negative sign on the coefficient means
that a higher value of the variable increases the odds of a lower value of the
outcome. For example, a negative coefficient for maternal education means that
a higher value of maternal education is associated with higher odds for a lower
value of son preference (in other words, with weaker son preference).
The data in our sample are clustered such that all observations within the
same household, community, and primary sampling unit are unlikely to be
independent of each other. Thus if one estimates standard errors on the
assumption of independence, they will be incorrect, most likely smaller than
they should be (Liang & Zeger, 1993). In previous work using these data, the
effects of clustering at the household and village levels were found to be minimal
(Pande, 1999). We correct here for clustering at the level of the primary sampling
unit, using the ‘‘cluster’’ command in Stata version 7.0.

Descriptive results

Patterns and extent of son preference

A preference for girls is rare in this population. Only 2.6% of all respondents
say they want more daughters than sons (Table 1). About half show a desire
for a balanced sex composition and say they want children of either sex, or
equal numbers of daughters and sons. Almost half of all respondents (46%)
report some son preference. Among those who report some son preference,
the majority (75.6%) want one more son than daughter.
Son preference is, of course, only one of a set of preferences people have
about their families and should be interpreted in that context. Particularly
relevant for this study are family size preferences. Table 1 shows that the
pattern of reported son preference appears to vary by the reported total
number of desired children.
The highest reported son preference is among those who want only three
children: 88% of such women want more boys than girls. Further, the strength
of reported son preference, and the percentage who report no son preference
(those in the ‘‘either’’ category), vary consistently by even and odd desired
family size. At every desired family size, those desiring an even number of
children seem to be less likely to report son preference than those desiring an
odd number of children. Further, in most cases, a majority of those desiring an
even number of children are likely to report being indifferent to, or wanting
equal numbers of, girls and boys.

123
Explaining son preference in rural India 13

Table 1 Gender preferences by family size preferences: rural Indian women, 1992–1993

Total number of Percent of women who want: Total number of Percent of

desired children women total sample
More boys More girls Either

1 50.6 7.0 42.4 1,091 2.2

2 9.2 0.3 90.5 17,922 35.8
3 88.3 4.3 7.4 17,184 34.3
4 27.8 0.9 71.3 9,805 19.6
5 82.0 10.5 7.5 2,473 4.9
6 49.3 3.6 47.1 1,083 2.2
7 74.6 18.5 7.0 209 0.4
8 47.3 5.2 47.5 197 0.4
9 65.2 27.6 7.2 35 0.1
10 41.3 3.1 55.6 83 0.2
11 79.7 20.3 0.0 4 0.0
12 50.6 0.0 49.4 33 0.1
13 100.0 0.0 0.0 2 0.0
14 0.0 0.0 100.0 0 0.0
15 34.0 0.0 66.0 2 0.0
16 67.0 0.0 33.0 3 0.0
Total 45.9 2.62 51.5 50,127 100
Among those who report son preference:
Percent who want 1 more son than daughters: 75.6
Percent who want 2 more sons than daughters: 18.6
Percent who want 3+ more sons than daughters: 5.8

It is possible that this reported indifference includes some degree of

‘‘unrevealed’’ son preference, where unrevealed preference is defined as a
subsample of those who answer ‘‘either’’ to whether they prefer boys or girls.
As noted above, among those who want more sons than daughters, 76% want
only one more son than daughter. If we assume, therefore, that those with an
unrevealed preference mostly would like a difference of one, then, since an
even desired family size conflicts with a desired sex difference of one, it is
possible that such women report being willing to settle for an equal number of
boys and girls. Ninety percent of women who ideally want only two children
say they would be happy with either sex, suggesting particularly high unre-
vealed sex preferences among this third of the total sample.
To mitigate the contamination of gender preference with family size pref-
erence that Table 1 shows, as well as to try and separate out those with
revealed versus unrevealed gender preferences, we present multivariate re-
sults for the whole sample, and for subgroups of women. First, we examine
those who want even and odd numbers of children separately. Second, we
focus attention on women who want two or three children. We expect results
to be somewhat different for those who want two or three children because
women who want particularly small families are likely to be different from
other women in ways that may also influence their gender preferences.
Moreover, this is an especially important group to consider because, as desired
family size falls, it will constitute an ever larger share of the population.

123
14 R. P. Pande, N. M. Astone

Distribution of explanatory variables

Table 2 presents descriptive characteristics for the explanatory variables, for

50,127 sample women (excluding nine who said they would ideally like zero
children) and by select family size preference. While many of these variables
measure related concepts, a correlation matrix showed that most variables are
not highly correlated, with the highest correlation that of –0.75 between rice
and wheat cultivation. This is still considered acceptable (Kennedy, 1996).
On the whole, women with revealed gender preferences (those who want
three children only and those who want an odd number of children) do not
seem to be very different from all women. Any differences are, moreover,
smaller than is the case for women who report no preferences, or large
potential unrevealed son preference (those who want two children only or an
even number of children). Differences are highlighted in bold. In particular,
women who want only two children are different from the sample as a whole
in key ways that are likely to be associated with lower son preference: they are
more likely to have higher education, be exposed to media, belong to
wealthier households, and to live in more endogamous and more developed
villages. They are also less likely to be from wheat-growing states, and more
likely to live in rice-growing states.

Multivariate results

We present three models for the sample as a whole to address our central
question (Table 3). Model 1 presents the effects of socioeconomic charac-
teristics of sample women and their households on son preference. Model 2
adds in the effects of variables that measure village opportunities for women
in terms of employment and education, as well as village economic develop-
ment. Model 3, the final model, adds variables that measure structural or
social factors and norms, including 25 state dummies. This final model allows
us to examine the independent influence of individual, community and mac-
rosocial factors on son preference. We then run model 3 for subgroups of
sample women as defined earlier.

Independent effects of social norms, village development, and individual

characteristics for all women

Most individual and household characteristics are strongly associated with son
preference when contextual factors are not controlled (model 1, Table 3).
Women who work but don’t earn, who are educated, who have regular access
to media and cinema, and who live in wealthy households are likely to have
weaker son preference than other women. As hypothesized, women from
landholding or extended households have higher son preference than those
from landless or nuclear families. Any education works to diminish son
preference. At the same time, higher levels of education are associated with

123
 Table 2 Mean value for explanatory variables (weighted), for all and by family size preference: rural Indian women, 1992–1993

Variable Percent of women

Who want even Who want All women Who want Who want odd
numbers of only two only three numbers of
children children children children

Individual & household

No education/illiterate 0.66 0.54 0.69 0.73 0.73
Primary education 0.15 0.18 0.14 0.14 0.13
Middle school education 0.10 0.13 0.09 0.08 0.08
Higher education 0.10 0.15 0.08 0.05 0.05
Doesn’t work outside the home 0.61 0.60 0.61 0.62 0.62
Works but doesn’t earn cash 0.24 0.26 0.23 0.22 0.22
Explaining son preference in rural India

Earns cash 0.15 0.15 0.15 0.16 0.16

Listens to radio or TV weekly 0.17 0.24 0.15 0.12 0.12
Goes to cinema monthly 0.13 0.18 0.11 0.08 0.08
Lives in an extended family 0.58 0.59 0.58 0.60 0.59
Hh wealth: poorest quintile 0.18 0.14 0.19 0.19 0.20
Hh wealth: second quintile 0.18 0.14 0.19 0.20 0.20
Hh wealth: middle quintile 0.19 0.18 0.20 0.21 0.20
Hh wealth: fourth quintile 0.21 0.22 0.21 0.21 0.20
Hh wealth: richest quintile 0.24 0.31 0.22 0.20 0.19
Hh owns land 0.65 0.63 0.67 0.69 0.69
Village opportunities & development
Propn of literate women 0.38 0.43 0.36 0.34 0.34
Propn of women working outside the home 0.29 0.31 0.28 0.26 0.26
At least middle school in village 0.68 0.72 0.66 0.65 0.64
Number of general facilities in village 2.79 3.13 2.69 2.57 2.55
All-weather road, bus station or rail station 0.64 0.71 0.62 0.61 0.60
Social factors & norms
Head of household is low caste 0.13 0.12 0.13 0.14 0.13
Head of household is tribal 0.11 0.08 0.11 0.11 0.12
Head of household is ‘‘other’’ caste 0.76 0.80 0.76 0.75 0.75
15

123
 Table 2 continued
16

Variable Percent of women

123
Who want even Who want All women Who want Who want odd
numbers of only two only three numbers of
children children children children

Hindu 0.84 0.87 0.84 0.86 0.85

Muslim 0.09 0.06 0.09 0.08 0.09
Other religion 0.07 0.07 0.07 0.06 0.06
Kinship endogamy 0.18 0.21 0.13 0.14 0.14
Territorial endogamy 0.14 0.15 0.16 0.11 0.12
North 0.39 0.31 0.41 0.44 0.45
Central 0.29 0.30 0.30 0.33 0.32
South 0.27 0.36 0.23 0.18 0.18
East 0.05 0.03 0.05 0.04 0.05
Propn rice in foodgrains 0.51 0.54 0.49 0.46 0.46
Propn wheat in foodgrains 0.21 0.17 0.23 0.26 0.26
Control variables
No surviving children 0.12 0.15 0.11 0.10 0.10
More girls than boys 0.32 0.29 0.32 0.30 0.31
Equal boys and girls 0.22 0.21 0.19 0.17 0.16
More boys than girls 0.35 0.35 0.38 0.43 0.43
Woman’s age 30.47 29.12 30.43 29.85 30.38
N (number of women) 29,405 17,901 50,127 16,887 20,722
N (number of households) 43,049
N (number of villages) 2,095
R. P. Pande, N. M. Astone
 Table 3 Determinants of son preference among rural Indian women, 1992–1993: all sample women

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3

Individual & household Village opportunities & Social factors and

factors development norms

Coef. P > |z| Coef. P > |z| Coef. P > |z|

Individual & household

Women’s education (illiterate)
Primary –0.469 0.000 –0.240 0.000 –0.188 0.000
Middle school –0.602 0.000 –0.328 0.000 –0.285 0.000
Higher –0.942 0.000 –0.605 0.000 –0.594 0.000
Women’s employment (none)
Explaining son preference in rural India

Works but doesn’t earn cash –0.229 0.000 –0.065 0.013 0.006 0.819
Earns cash –0.019 0.576 0.104 0.000 0.049 0.102
Listens to radio or TV weekly (no) –0.223 0.000 –0.173 0.000 –0.169 0.000
Goes to cinema monthly (no) –0.582 0.000 –0.490 0.000 –0.219 0.000
Household wealth (poorest)
Second quintile –0.030 0.357 0.022 0.531 0.041 0.243
Middle quintile –0.075 0.020 0.021 0.544 0.009 0.786
Fourth quintile –0.142 0.000 0.017 0.663 –0.006 0.871
Richest quintile –0.141 0.000 –0.002 0.970 –0.108 0.025
Household owns land (no) 0.179 0.000 0.049 0.050 0.020 0.407
Lives in extended household (no) 0.102 0.000 0.044 0.058 0.015 0.525
Village opportunities & development
Proportion of literate women –1.468 0.000 –0.529 0.000
Proportion of women working –0.876 0.000 –0.131 0.147
At least a middle school (no) 0.011 0.722 0.003 0.911
All-weather road, bus station or rail station (none) –0.009 0.782 –0.028 0.345
Number of general facilities (none) –0.015 0.036 –0.012 0.164
Social factors & norms
Territorial endogamy 0.039 0.768
Kinship endogamy –0.073 0.586
Proportion rice in foodgrains –0.157 0.331
17

123
 Table 3 continued
18

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3

123
Individual & household Village opportunities & Social factors and
factors development norms

Coef. P [ |z| Coef. P [ |z| Coef. P [ |z|

Proportion wheat in foodgrains *

Caste (‘‘other’’)
Low caste 0.096 0.003
Tribal –0.121 0.003
Religion (Hindu)
Muslim 0.090 0.042
Other –0.121 0.013
Control variables
Composition of surviving children (none)
More girls than boys –0.291 0.000 –0.254 0.000 –0.233 0.000
Equal girls and boys –0.301 0.000 –0.265 0.000 –0.245 0.000
More boys than girls 0.455 0.000 0.480 0.000 0.510 0.000
Family size (number of living children) 0.128 0.000 0.114 0.000 0.109 0.000
Woman’s age –0.011 0.000 –0.005 0.000 –0.004 0.002
Cut points for outcome variable
_cut1 –0.003 –0.524 0.144
_cut2 2.043 1.558 2.266
Sample size (N) 49,495 47,269 47,045
Pseudo-R2 0.051 0.065 0.083
Log-likelihood –43,765.404 –41,144.48 –40,178.158

* Variable for proportion of wheat dropped due to collinearity

Note: regression includes dummy variables for state
R. P. Pande, N. M. Astone
Explaining son preference in rural India 19

significantly weaker son preference than are lower levels of education, pos-
sibly because higher levels of education provide a woman with more avenues
to increase her social and economic standing by means other than being a
mother of sons.
In model 2 we introduce characteristics of village opportunities and
development. While the effects of education, work, and media access remain
significant, household wealth is no longer important. Overall village devel-
opment in terms of facilities available in the village is inversely related with
son preference, as hypothesized. Village-level women’s employment and
education are particularly important and significantly related to lower son
preference.
In model 3, the complete model, we introduce variables to measure social
and cultural norms. Overall, this model suggests that women’s opportunities
and characteristics as measured by education and access to media are critical,
at both individual and community levels. Women’s work and household
wealth, however, are not important, and neither is village development.
Among variables measuring social norms, only caste and religion significantly
influence son preference.
Independent of all other factors, women’s education at individual and
village levels continues to be strongly associated with weaker son preference.
The effect of secondary education here is particularly noteworthy, and women
with secondary or higher education have significantly weaker son preference
than women with lower levels of education. In fact, the coefficient on this
variable is the largest of any variable in the model. This strong result supports
the view in the literature that higher levels of education change women’s view
of female worth (Malhotra et al., 2003). Similarly, regular access to media and
cinema remain significantly associated with lower son preference, suggesting
that access to ‘‘modern’’ information and ways of life can influence gender
preferences independent of other individual or structural factors. On the other
hand, women’s employment, at the individual or community level, is not
significant. This may reflect the study’s context of rural areas with low female
education and thus limited professional skills, wherein employment may be
more associated with economic necessity rather than signifying greater gender
equality as such.
Household wealth variables are also not significant. The effect of land
ownership becomes small and statistically nonsignificant, and only women in
the wealthiest quintile of households have significantly weaker son preference
than the poorest, though the coefficient is small. One interpretation of this
finding is that when land ownership is controlled, women in wealthier
households are less conservative in their gender preferences than those in the
poorest households. Another interpretation is that a woman has to be in an
extremely wealthy household before she has alternatives to sons as economic
assets.
Seventeen of the 25 state dummies are statistically significant, with 13 of
them associated with higher son preference. Though these dummies cannot be
substantively interpreted, this pattern is consistent with the existence of

123
20 R. P. Pande, N. M. Astone

factors at the state level that determine son preference, above and beyond
what can be measured by the variables included in this analysis.
In this full model, neither the endogamy variables nor the agrarian ecology
variables remain significant. In other words, the factors that have historically
been thought to mediate regional differences in son preference (and gender
equity more generally) are not found to be influential. This finding is consis-
tent with recent research suggesting that broad regional cultural and economic
patterns of endogamy or agricultural production are becoming less important
determinants of gender inequality—and thus, presumably, son prefer-
ence—than are more local cultural and social norms (Rahman & Rao, 2004).
On the other hand, caste and religion remain strong determinants of son
preference, regardless of which state the respondent may reside in, suggesting
that these social characteristics continue to influence son preference. Contrary
to our hypothesis, lower caste women have slightly higher son preference than
high castes. This may be related to the process of Sanskritization, whereby
lower castes try to emulate the higher castes by adopting customs that con-
tribute to confining women to the home (Srinivas, 1976). Tribal women, on the
other hand, have significantly lower son preference than reference women.
The religion coefficients suggest that women from Muslim households have
slightly higher son preference, and women from other, non-Hindu,
non-Muslim religions, have slightly lower son preference than do Hindu
women.

Comparing final models for all women and women with different family
size preferences

The effects of different individual and structural factors on son preference for
those who have revealed son preference (odd ideal family size) and those who
have unrevealed preferences (even ideal family size) are, on the whole, rel-
atively similar to the full sample (Table 4). Among individual characteristics,
the effects of women’s education remain strong, as does the greater influence
of post-primary education in reducing son preference. Similarly, exposure to
weekly media continues to be significant. Among the variables measuring
social norms, the weaker son preference among tribal women remains sig-
nificant across all three groups.
Women who want particularly small families, on the other hand, differ from
the full sample in some ways (Table 5; models 6 and 7 are logit models, since
the third category for the ordered logit dependent variable was not defined for
these subsamples). For instance, the effects of media and religion vary across
subgroups. The rice production coefficient, in addition, is unstable across
model specifications.
Education and the effect of tribe are consistent across models. In all the
models in Tables 4 and 5, individual women’s education (though not village
female literacy) remains a strong predictor of son preference, especially
middle or higher education. Similarly, in all the models, women from tribal
households have weaker son preference than high/other caste women.

123
 Table 4 Determinants of son preference among rural Indian women, 1992–1993: by odd and even desired family sizes

Model 3 Model 4 Model 5

Final model for all Women with odd Women with even
rural women desired family size desired family size

Coef. P > |z| Coef. P > |z| Coef. P > |z|

Individual & household

Women’s education (illiterate)
Primary –0.188 0.000 –0.246 0.000 –0.249 0.000
Middle school –0.285 0.000 –0.190 0.005 –0.515 0.000
Higher –0.594 0.000 –0.569 0.000 –0.518 0.000
Women’s employment (none)
Explaining son preference in rural India

Works but doesn’t earn cash 0.006 0.819 –0.032 0.543 0.037 0.480
Earns cash 0.049 0.102 –0.056 0.299 0.146 0.009
Listens to radio or TV weekly (no) –0.169 0.000 –0.136 0.022 –0.237 0.000
Goes to cinema monthly (no) –0.219 0.000 –0.058 0.448 –0.279 0.004
Household wealth (poorest)
Second quintile 0.041 0.243 0.021 0.770 0.077 0.186
Middle quintile 0.009 0.786 0.014 0.836 0.034 0.556
Fourth quintile –0.006 0.871 0.023 0.732 –0.028 0.659
Richest quintile –0.108 0.025 –0.167 0.028 –0.107 0.169
Household owns land (no) 0.020 0.407 0.054 0.247 0.001 0.983
Lives in extended household (no) 0.015 0.525 0.040 0.334 0.034 0.366
Village opportunities & development
Proportion of literate women –0.529 0.000 –0.262 0.111 –0.751 0.000
Proportion of women working –0.131 0.147 0.048 0.737 –0.141 0.356
At least a middle school (no) 0.003 0.911 0.025 0.638 –0.017 0.738
All-weather road, bus station or rail station (none) –0.028 0.345 –0.070 0.162 –0.026 0.638
Number of general facilities (none) –0.012 0.164 –0.013 0.316 –0.029 0.029
Social factors & norms
Territorial endogamy 0.039 0.768 –0.213 0.318 0.079 0.705
Kinship endogamy –0.073 0.586 0.298 0.205 –0.037 0.887
Proportion rice in foodgrains –0.157 0.331 –1.279 0.000 –0.311 0.280
21

123
 Table 4 continued
22

Model 3 Model 4 Model 5

123
Final model for all Women with odd Women with even
rural women desired family size desired family size

Coef. P [ |z| Coef. P [ |z| Coef. P [ |z|

Proportion wheat in foodgrains * * *

Caste (‘‘other’’)
Low caste 0.096 0.003 0.169 0.003 0.059 0.309
Tribal –0.121 0.003 –0.214 0.003 –0.171 0.013
Religion (Hindu)
Muslim 0.090 0.042 –0.047 0.578 0.244 0.003
Other –0.121 0.013 –0.196 0.014 –0.049 0.657
Control variables
Composition of surviving children (none)
More girls than boys –0.233 0.000 –0.712 0.000 –0.329 0.000
Equal girls and boys –0.245 0.000 –0.030 0.734 –0.381 0.000
More boys than girls 0.510 0.000 0.308 0.000 0.681 0.000
Family size (number of living children) 0.109 0.000 0.168 0.000 0.131 0.000
Woman’s age –0.004 0.002 –0.007 0.018 –0.002 0.341
Cut points for outcome variable
_cut1 0.144 –2.353 1.609
_cut2 2.266 2.961 1.775
Sample size (N) 47,045 19,415 27,622
Pseudo-R2 0.083 0.119 0.129
Log-likelihood –40,178.158 –10,497.907 –12,196.578

* Variable for proportion of wheat dropped due to collinearity

Note: regression includes dummy variables for state
R. P. Pande, N. M. Astone
 Table 5 Determinants of son preference among rural Indian women, 1992–1993: by desired family size of two or three children

Model 3 Model 6 Model 7

Final model for all Women who ideally Women who ideally
rural women want two children want three children

Coef. P > |z| Coef. P > |z| Coef. P > |z|

Individual & household

Women’s education (illiterate)
Primary –0.188 0.000 –0.153 0.081 –0.196 0.013
Middle school –0.285 0.000 –0.600 0.000 –0.064 0.515
Higher –0.594 0.000 –0.352 0.002 –0.332 0.003
Women’s employment (none)
Explaining son preference in rural India

Works but doesn’t earn cash 0.006 0.819 0.006 0.945 –0.039 0.585
Earns cash 0.049 0.102 0.269 0.002 –0.064 0.450
Listens to radio or TV weekly (no) –0.169 0.000 –0.263 0.000 –0.080 0.300
Goes to cinema monthly (no) –0.219 0.000 –0.155 0.228 –0.062 0.547
Household wealth (poorest)
Second quintile 0.041 0.243 –0.060 0.611 0.041 0.657
Middle quintile 0.009 0.786 0.035 0.763 0.033 0.723
Fourth quintile –0.006 0.871 0.006 0.961 0.062 0.494
Richest quintile –0.108 0.025 –0.023 0.863 –0.128 0.204
Household owns land (no) 0.020 0.407 0.007 0.919 0.068 0.248
Lives in extended household (no) 0.015 0.525 0.063 0.268 0.067 0.226
Village opportunities & development
Proportion of literate women –0.529 0.000 –0.333 0.147 –0.242 0.341
Proportion of women working –0.131 0.147 0.458 0.046 –0.019 0.932
At least a middle school (no) 0.003 0.911 0.024 0.770 0.064 0.440
All-weather road, bus station or rail station (none) –0.028 0.345 0.091 0.256 –0.119 0.113
Number of general facilities (none) –0.012 0.164 –0.048 0.019 0.014 0.427
Social factors & norms
Territorial endogamy 0.039 0.768 0.016 0.968 –0.318 0.186
Kinship endogamy –0.073 0.586 0.024 0.959 0.250 0.412
Proportion rice in foodgrains –0.157 0.331 –1.682 0.000 –2.411 0.000
23

123
 Table 5 continued
24

Model 3 Model 6 Model 7

123
Final model for all Women who ideally Women who ideally
rural women want two children want three children

Coef. P [ |z| Coef. P [ |z| Coef. P [ |z|

Proportion wheat in foodgrains * * *

Caste (‘‘other’’)
Low caste 0.096 0.003 –0.131 0.182 0.154 0.088
Tribal –0.121 0.003 –0.311 0.015 –0.264 0.013
Religion (Hindu)
Muslim 0.090 0.042 –0.181 0.327 –0.075 0.475
Other –0.121 0.013 0.030 0.836 –0.305 0.005
Control variables
Composition of surviving children (none)
More girls than boys –0.233 0.000 –0.026 0.830 –0.798 0.000
Equal girls and boys –0.245 0.000 –0.212 0.082 0.007 0.956
More boys than girls 0.510 0.000 0.902 0.000 0.250 0.023
Family size (number of living children) 0.109 0.000 0.079 0.001 0.154 0.000
Woman’s age –0.004 0.002 –0.013 0.002 –0.004 0.313
Cut points for outcome variable
_cut1 0.144
_cut2 2.266
Constant –1.440 0.000 3.081 0.000
Sample size (N) 47,045 16,861 15,795
Pseudo-R2 0.083 0.120 0.167
Log-likelihood –40,178.158 –4,675.195 –4,907.401

* Variable for proportion of wheat dropped due to collinearity

Note: regression includes dummy variables for state
R. P. Pande, N. M. Astone
Explaining son preference in rural India 25

The variation in results between the sample as a whole and the different
subsamples examined here is difficult to interpret as it is likely to be a com-
bination of differences in sample sizes, differences in the extent of revealed
son preference and ideal desired family sizes between groups, and systematic
differences in sample characteristics for the subsamples that want particularly
small families. At a minimum, however, this analysis suggests that it is
important to take account of ideal family size preferences in measuring ideal
gender preferences. In particular, women who go against the norm in wanting
small families may be different from other women in ways that warrant further
exploration when examining gender preferences.

Discussion

In this paper we have tested the hypothesis that a number of factors that have
long been associated, at the level of individual characteristics or social norms,
with demographic phenomena thought to reflect son preference, are also
important predictors of son preference when measured directly. We have
analyzed the independent, relative effects of individual and household char-
acteristics, village opportunities and development, and social norms and
structures. Finally, we have examined whether the predictors of son prefer-
ence differ by desired family size. The data we use, while not exhaustive,
provide a unique opportunity to examine these issues quantitatively.
Our study is informed by a theoretical orientation whose proponents see
gender stratification as emerging from the simultaneous influence of factors at
many levels: a woman’s own experience in her household, the characteristics
of the people with whom she lives and the household in which she resides, the
local community, and macrosocietal norms (Malhotra & Schuler, 2005). As
such, our results are consistent with this view of gender and how gender
preferences are formed: while an individual woman’s and her household’s
characteristics do influence her gender preferences, social norms are impor-
tant. In other words, it is not enough in an analysis of son preference to focus
on an individual woman’s characteristics alone or structural characteristics
alone; rather, we need to examine both simultaneously.
At the same time, our paper demonstrates an enormous influence of
women’s education, particularly education beyond primary schooling,
regardless of desired family size. Given the multivariate nature of this anal-
ysis, we can conclude that there is something in the nature of women’s
education—particularly higher education—that significantly weakens son
preference, beyond any role it may play in allowing women to be employed or
have access to media, beyond its association with higher socioeconomic status,
and net of social norms. This finding is consistent with recent research on
other aspects of gender inequality that shows a much stronger effect of
post-primary education, compared to primary education, in improving gender
equality and women’s lives (Malhotra et al., 2003).

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26 R. P. Pande, N. M. Astone

While our data do not give us information on why, in particular, education

beyond primary school levels has such an important effect net of other factors,
we can hazard some possible reasons. There may be an intergenerational
process at work. Particularly in rural India where few women go beyond
primary schooling, women who are more educated are likely to be regarded
differently by their households and communities and allowed a wider range of
roles and opportunities than is traditionally sanctioned. Consequently, their
own normative view of permissible roles for daughters and sons, and thus
relative values of daughters and sons, may differ from the norm and they have
weaker son preference.
There may also be other factors at work that make certain women both
more likely to be more educated and more likely to have weaker son pref-
erence that we were not able to capture in our analysis, such as other aspects
of women’s empowerment, characteristics of their natal family, or the socio-
political character of their village. Thus, while our paper suggests that
women’s education may be a trigger for change insofar as gender preferences
are concerned, it also indicates that more in-depth research is needed to better
understand what it is about education, net of other related factors, that has
this effect, and how education can be best manipulated to help change
underlying gender norms and preferences.
Our results endorse the view that economic factors are not enough to
change deeply entrenched norms about gender preferences. The weak
explanatory power of the household wealth and village development variables
is testimony to the tenacity with which centuries-old norms about women
persist in rural India, independent of increased wealth. Recent reports of
growing sex-selective abortion in India suggest that women and families in
wealthier households and communities merely change the way they imple-
ment son preference, not the preference itself (Oomman & Ganatra, 2002).
This paper adds to the existing literature by rigorously disentangling the
multitude of simultaneous influences on son preference among rural Indian
women and suggests possible avenues on which to focus future research and
policy. The broad causes of son preference are well-understood. Next steps
need to focus on better understanding the processes by which factors associ-
ated with weaker son preference operate, so as to better identify at what stage
to intervene.
A better understanding of how to focus policy to weaken the motivation for
son preference is particularly urgent in the face of the 2001 census, which
shows that son preference continues to exert its influence on Indian society,
despite strong economic and social development in the decade of the 1990s,
and despite policy alarm bells that were set off by the abysmal sex ratios in the
1991 census. Policy levers need to be chosen with care, however. As India goes
through and completes the fertility transition, an increasing percentage of
women will want smaller families. We have shown that the determinants of
son preference may be different for such women. Moreover, our paper joins
other recent research in pointing out that the context of son preference in
India is no longer broadly regional; rather, it is context-specific, where the

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Explaining son preference in rural India 27

context has to be examined at state or even more micro levels. Therefore it is

imperative that policymakers identify and target different policy levers to
women in different fertility and social contexts, rather than try an approach of
one size that fits all.

Acknowledgments This paper is based on the first author’s doctoral thesis while at the Johns
Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Support for this research was provided by the
Hewlett Foundation, The Population Council, and the Mellon Foundation. The authors thank
Drs. Ken Hill, Anju Malhotra, and Kathryn Yount for their comments.

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