Gender preference at birth (GPB): a new measure for son preference and its implications for outcomes in fertility and poverty in Pakistan
Creators: name: Ali, Mehwish Ghulam
Publisher: name: RMIT University
Year: 2024
Subjects: classificationCode: 380108
subject: Health economics
classificationCode: 380119
subject: Welfare economics
classificationCode: 440302
subject: Fertility

description: Son preference is a focal area in development economics research because it presents a challenge in achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The association between son preference and outcomes in fertility and poverty continues to be a cause of concern to policy makers, especially in countries with high fertility and low contraception usage such as Pakistan. Despite policy intervention, at the current pace of fertility decline the population level is expected to double over the next three decades in Pakistan (United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, 2019). Policymakers have highlighted that the rapid population growth will pose a challenge for Pakistan's economic and social development (Planning Commission, 2019). This is concerning because Pakistan already ranks low in the Human Development Index and Gender Development Index in South Asia (UNDP, 2020). It is thus imperative that academic efforts be made to continually inform policymakers about the implications of son preference to assist them in achieving the objectives of the national policy.

The preference for sons is a prevailing characteristic of Pakistani households, often driven by socio-economic, religious and tradition-based factors. Son preference may be one of the potential factors spurring high fertility in Pakistan and hindering the country's efforts to reduce poverty. It is thus essential to investigate the role of son preference in driving fertility and poverty outcomes.

Prevalent measures of son preference have been designed in the context of low fertility and high contraception usage countries with little differentiation between observed parental behaviour and stated preference or the timing of son preference. This gap in existing knowledge warrants a new examination into son preference to inform policymakers of potential challenges in achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Therefore, this thesis examined the empirical relationship between son preference and outcomes in fertility and poverty. Using the Pakistan Demographic and Health Surveys, three research tasks were completed. First, a new measure of son preference, called GPB (i.e. gender preference at birth), was developed to address the key limitations of the prevalent measures. Second, the impact of the GPB measure on the fertility gap, that is, the gap between the household's desired and actual fertility was estimated. Third, the relationship between the GPB measure and the gendered nature of multidimensional poverty outcomes was evaluated.

The contribution of this thesis is threefold. First, development of the GPB measure addresses the key limitations of existing measures. Specifically, GPB incorporates the stated preferences and observed behaviours of parents, and hence is more suitable for countries where use of contraception remains low. Second, findings in this thesis demonstrate that son preference, as measured by GPB, causes households to have more children than desired (i.e. a negative fertility gap). Third, the use of the GPB measure allows for differentiation in timing of son preference into pre- and post-birth while investigating poverty outcomes. The findings in this thesis indicate that the timing and nature of pre-birth son preference is crucial to its association with poverty outcomes hence country specific analysis is encouraged. These findings strongly indicate that son preference should be an important consideration for policymakers when devising population control and poverty reduction strategies in Pakistan.