Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/161142 
Year of Publication: 
2017
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 10519
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
We study the role of risk aversion underlying son preference in patriarchal societies, where sons serve as better insurance for old-age support than daughters. The implications of an insurance motive on son preference are two-fold. First, prior to the birth of their children, more risk-averse parents have a stronger preference for sons than for daughters. Second, after the birth of their children, parents with sons are more risk seeking, compared to parents with daughters. We adopt a within-twin-pair fixed-effects estimator with a weak identification assumption, which enables us to jointly identify these two effects. We further conduct an incentivized choice experiment to assess parental risk attitude in a sample of Chinese twins with children, and follow up with a second twin sample to examine the replicability of the findings. In both samples, we find that parents with greater risk aversion before the birth of their children are more likely to have sons through sex selection than parents with less risk aversion. Additionally, having sons significantly decreases parental risk aversion. These results contribute to the literature on the sources of son preference and help shed light on the nature of gender inequality.
Subjects: 
risk aversion
son preference
twins
experimental economics
JEL: 
C93
D01
D80
J13
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
316.21 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.