Disparities in Gender Preference and Fertility: Southeast Asia and South America in a Comparative Perspective

Résumé 0

Preference for sons and sex selection against females is widespread in vast regions of the world, including a great number of Asian and East European countries. However, while robust son-bias has been widely studied in several countries of these regions, much less attention has been given to other regions, such as Latin America. The aim of this paper is to compare the intensity of gender preference in selected countries of Southeast Asia (Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam) and Latin America (Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico and Uruguay) at the beginning of the 21st century by calculating to what extent parents adapt their fertility behavior to ensure the birth of preferred sex. Using census data from Integrated Public Use Microdata Series-International (IPUMS-I) derived from the 2010 round, we compute Parity Progression Ratios. Our results show a relatively uniform pattern for Latin American countries, with a widespread preference for a mixed composition of children. Son preference is visible only in a few cases, and it is slightly noticeable in some others. Instead, a mixed composition of children is the most widespread preference.