Eat Drink Man Woman: Testing for Gender Bias in China Using Individual Nutrient Intake Data*

We present unitary and sharing rule models of the household that explicitly account for three parental concerns that may lead to gender bias in the allocation of resources to children—equity, efficiency, and preferences. Deaton’s test of the effect of household composition on adult good expenditures is employed using data on fathers’ and mothers’ nutrient intake from the China Health and Nutrition Survey. We find that rural fathers, especially less educated ones, favor sons while rural mothers do not. Parental differences in gender bias are statistically significant, a result which is inconsistent with the unitary model and equity bias explanations of gender bias. JEL codes: D12, I12, J13, J16, O12, O53