Does desire for male child bring differentials in the child care after birth?

Son preference refers to the attitude that sons are more important and more valuable than daughters. A complex interplay of economic and social factors determines the benefits and cost of a child. Son preference is still very strong in India. In order to maintain small families and have desired sex composition of the children, people may try methods such as sex selective abortion. Therefore this paper tries to look into, the desire of women to have at least one male child and child care. It is assumed that the child care may be better for the male child. The study uses primary in 2010, the sample size is 330. The study area comprises of 11 villages from Rajarhat CD block of 24-north Parganas in West Bengal, India. The results show higher percentage of women desired to have at least one male child, women stated economic and social reasons for wanting at least one male child. The child care shows that almost similar care was taken for both male and female children, irrespective of the fact that high percentage of women wanted male children. Much significant difference in the time spent on child care and daily child care is seen for the male and the female children. The preference for male child is more in terms of desire but this necessarily does not transform into discriminatory practices in the day to day child care