TWO SONS AND A DAUGHTER: SEX COMPOSITION AND WOMEN'S REPRODUCTIVE BEHAVIOUR IN MADHYA PRADESH, INDIA

This article examines how the sex composition of women's current children at the start of a pregnancy interval influences both fertility desires and the full range of reproductive actions women may take to realize them, including temporary contraception, abortion and sterilization, in Madhya Pr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of biosocial science 2012-11, Vol.44 (6), p.749-764
Main Authors: EDMEADES, JEFFREY, PANDE, ROHINI, MACQUARRIE, KERRY, FALLE, TINA, MALHOTRA, ANJU
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Abortion
Abortion, Induced - utilization
Adolescent
Adult
Biological and medical sciences
Birth Control
Birth Intervals
Children
Contraception Behavior
Cross-Sectional Studies
Family Characteristics
Family planning
Family Planning Services
Family Size
Female
Females
Gender
General aspects
Humans
India
Likelihood Functions
Logistic Models
Madhya Pradesh
Male
Males
Medical sciences
Miscellaneous
Preferences
Pregnancy
Public health. Hygiene
Public health. Hygiene-occupational medicine
Reproductive Behavior
Reproductive History
Retrospective Studies
Sexual behavior
Sterilization
Sterilization, Reproductive - utilization
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Summary:This article examines how the sex composition of women's current children at the start of a pregnancy interval influences both fertility desires and the full range of reproductive actions women may take to realize them, including temporary contraception, abortion and sterilization, in Madhya Pradesh, India, where popular notions of ideal family size and sex composition are dominated by son preference. The analysis is conducted using a dataset of 9127 individual pregnancy intervals from a 2002 statewide representative survey of 2444 women aged 15–39 with at least one child. The results indicate that women's preferences go beyond a singular preference for male children, with the preferred composition of children being two boys and one girl. Women with this composition are 90% less likely to report having wanted another pregnancy (OR 0.097, p
ISSN:0021-9320
1469-7599
DOI:10.1017/S0021932012000119