Understanding parental gender preferences in advanced societies: Lessons from Sweden and Finland

Extending recent research on parental gender preferences in the Nordic countries, this study uses unique register data from Finland and Sweden (1971-1999) that provide us with the opportunity to compare childbearing dynamics and possible underlying sex preferences among native majorities and national minorities, namely Finnish-born immigrants in Sweden and members of the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland. For Finland, we observe a continuous boy preference among the national majority and the Swedish-speaking minority as reflected in higher third-birth rates of mothers of two girls than of mothers of two boys. Evidence of similar preferences is found for Finnishborn migrants in Sweden, where the native-born population instead appears to have developed a girl preference. In all cases, we also observe clear indications of a preference for having at least one child of each sex. Generally speaking, our findings support an interpretation of parental gender preferences as a longstanding cultural phenomenon, related to country of childhood socialization rather than language group. Moreover, an analysis of regional and educational differentials in child-sex specific fertility behavior in Sweden reveals no evidence which supports various diffusion theories of persistence and change in parents’ sex preferences for children. 1 Stockholm University, Stockholm. Email: [email protected]. 2 MEA – University of Mannheim & DIW Berlin. Email: [email protected]. 3 United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, Geneva. Email: [email protected]. Andersson, Hank & Vikat: Understanding parental gender preferences in advanced societies 136 http://www.demographic-research.org