Children's gender, separation, and parity progression: Is Finland an outlier?

Previous research from the Nordic countries suggest that Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish mothers have developed a preference for having a daughter. Finland constitutes an exception. Finnish mothers with two girls have approximately ten per cent lower risks of continued childbearing than those with two boys. If there really is a son preference, we are likely to expect two things. First, it would manifest in lower separation risks in couples with sons as compared to those with daughters. Second, there should be a higher risk of continued childbearing of women with daughters than of those with sons also at parity three. We use longitudinal population register data that make it possible to study both these aspects simultaneously, for the same women, by constructing families and follow them prospectively over time. Preliminary results of Cox regression models say that a first-born girl raises the risk of parental separation with approximately seven per cent as compared with a first-born boy. Also patterns of parity progression indicate a boy preference in Finland. Like in the U.S., these effects although seem to have attenuated during the past decades, suggesting a more egalitarian distribution of fathers’ attention to sons and daughters.