The decline of son preference and rise of gender indifference in Taiwan since 1990

Abstract This study explores the change of married women's sex preference for children in Taiwan since 1990, finding that there was a substantial decline of son preference and rise of "gender indifference", defined as feeling indifferent about children's sex (as opposed to desiring an equal number of boys and girls, in which the sex of children is still a primary consideration). Results show that at the individual level female education was the strongest predictor for the preference; education was negatively associated with son preference and positively with gender indifference. Cohort difference was noticeable as well. Younger cohorts were better educated than older ones hence they were more neutral about the sex and less adherent to the traditional male preference. In addition from 1992 to 2002 there was a universal intra cohort movement toward gender neutrality and away from son preference. When the younger cohorts gradually replaced the older ones as the main child bearers in Taiwanese society, at the aggregate level son preference declined and gender indifference rose. 1. Introduction In addition to "daughter preference", two forms of parental sex preference are likely to emerge to replace the traditional son preference as it has declined: "gender indifference" or "gender balance". Gender balance is defined as desiring an equal number of boys and girls, in which the "sex" is still a main consideration. By contrast, gender indifference indicates a situation in which parents feel that the sex does not matter, where a boy is as good as a girl (or vice versa); therefore no particular sex combinations are desired. Theoretically, when gender inequality has been eliminated or gender roles have become identical in a society, one sex would not be treated more favorably than the other, and parents would have little incentive to prefer one sex to the other. However, the transition of fertility preference may go the other way: the gender system was once so entrenched in the culture that even when differentiation of sex roles has been erased, new parents still want children of both sexes because their perception about gender is not synchronized with the "actual" social change. In the West, both types of transition - gender indifference (Pollard and Morgan 2002) and gender balance (Kippen, Evans, and Gray 2007) - have been observed. However, no existing demographic research has addressed "gender indifference" or "gender balance" as an issue of Asian populations or explored the recent development of parental sex preference in Asian societies (with Chung and Das Gupta (2007) being an exception). Son preference in many newly industrialized Asian societies is expected to have declined and a new form of parental sex preference is expected to have emerged, because these societies have experienced substantial social development for more than two decades. As an example, Chung and Das Gupta (2007) found that son preference in Korea had declined since 1990, although the authors did not investigate which type of preference was replacing it. Thus this study aims to explore the following questions: First, it will examine whether the sex preference in Taiwan has changed since 1990; to illustrate the background of sex preference in Taiwan, data prior to 1990 will also be used. Second, if there has been a change, this study will test whether it is due to the rising socioeconomic status of women. Finally, this study will also examine cohort difference in sex preference and use it to explain the change in sex preference at the aggregate level from 1992 to 2002 in Taiwan. 2. Son preference in Taiwan Over the past thirty years there has been a rapid economic growth, a rise in women's status, and even a dramatic change in the political system in Taiwan, all of which may have fundamentally changed traditional social values, including the preference to have a son. Taiwan is a society with a strong Confucian heritage; high fertility and preference of male children were viewed as normative in Confucian ethics (Tang 1995). …