135. Do Baby Girls Cause Divorce?

Even American parents have a strong "son preference" -- which means that a newborn daughter can be bad news for a marriage.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Stephen J. Dubner?

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• 2:36Speaker 01

  I'm Enrico Moretti, and I'm a professor of economics at Berkeley.

• 2:40Stephen J. Dubner?

  Okay, very good. So, Enrico, a listener wrote to us with a very, very straightforward question, which is this: in marriages where a baby boy is born, is there a less chance of the husband leaving the marriage? So, we can get into the details later, but can you, you know, economists are famous for never giving a yes or no answer to anything. I'm wondering if you can give us a yes or no answer to that question.

• 3:05Speaker 01

  Yes, it's an easy answer. And the answer is yes. Parents who have firstborn girls are significantly more likely to be divorced, and so parents who have firstborn boys are significantly more likely to stay together.

• 3:29Speaker 02

  From WNYC, this is Freakonomics Radio, the podcast that explores the hidden side of everything. Here's your host, Stephen Dubner.

• 3:55Stephen J. Dubner?

  You just heard Enrico Moretti, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, tell us a striking fact, that parents whose first child is a daughter are significantly more likely to be divorced than if they'd had a son. Now, how does Moretti know this? He wrote a research paper, along with the economist Gordon Dahl, called "The Demand for Sons." They analyzed US census data from 1960 to 2000, along with other data, to measure the effect of a firstborn child's gender on marital stability.

• 4:32Speaker 01

  We find that fathers are significantly less likely to be living with their children if they have daughters versus sons. This overall effect is fairly large. It's about 3.1% lower probability of a father for families with a girl.

• 4:49Stephen J. Dubner?

  And can you put that into numbers of families or daughters for me, then?

• 4:53Speaker 01

  Yes. We estimate that over a 10-year period, that accounts for about 50,000 firstborn daughters who are living without their father.

• 5:02Stephen J. Dubner?

  Wow. So, Enrico, you're saying that there is a significant, not huge, but significant effect on marriage that a firstborn daughter will have, that a firstborn daughter will decrease, you know, marriage rates or increase the families that are splitting up. Why? What are the channels, you know, by which this firstborn daughter leads to fewer fathers living with the family? Why do male offspring seem to be better at holding marriages together?

• 5:32Speaker 01

  There are three main channels. First of all, women who have daughters are more likely to have never been married than women who have boys. Second, parents who have firstborn girls are significantly more likely to be divorced. And third, divorced fathers are much more likely to obtain custody of their sons compared to their daughters.

• 5:57Stephen J. Dubner?

  Okay, so three channels, you say. One is when there's a couple conceives a child out of wedlock. If that child is a girl, you're saying the couple is less likely than to marry, yes?

• 6:09Speaker 01

  That's correct.

• 6:10Stephen J. Dubner?

  Talk to me for a minute about that. A, I'm just a little curious about what your response was when you saw that in the data, and B, I'm curious if you can offer any why on that one for us.

• 6:21Speaker 01

  We were very surprised when we found the evidence on marriage in the data. We were even more surprised when we found evidence that the gender of the kid affects the probability of shotgun marriages. In particular, we find that for parents who are not married at conception of the kid, among those who learn that their future child will be a boy, they're more likely to marry by the time of delivery compared to parents who learn that their future child will be a girl.

• 6:56Stephen J. Dubner?

  Now, I just want to step back. So, there's a Gallup poll that you described that's been taken ever since 1941 with a survey question that asks, if you could have only one child, would you prefer that it be a boy or a girl? And in 2011, the most recent survey year, boys led girls 40% to 28%, with 26% saying it doesn't matter. So, first of all, why such a large gap? Why do you think, or what do you know about why people have such a strong son preference?

• 7:29Speaker 01

  Well, one thing we do know is that it's mostly driven by men. When women are asked whether they would like to have a boy or a girl, they are evenly split. But when men are asked when they'd rather have a boy versus a girl, they tend to favor boys. And this is consistent with the evidence in our study that comes from actual choices that people make rather than their self-reported preferences.

• 7:56Stephen J. Dubner?

  And do we know, can you unpack the number and tell us why that is? Why do fathers at least say they want, and as your data show, actually want, sons more than daughters?

• 8:12Speaker 01

  Our study doesn't really address the causes. We take it that they are cultural and economists, they take preferences as given. They don't discuss preferences, they don't question preferences. The best they can do, they can measure preferences, and that's what we seek to do.

• 8:37Stephen J. Dubner?

  That's what we seek to do, Moretti says. Measure people's preferences, not dictate them.

• 8:45Stephen J. Dubner?

  That is often a very fine line in modern society. The world is a bed of nails, and we are all hammers. Enrico Moretti, he just wants to know how the nails got there, maybe what they're made of.

• 9:07Stephen J. Dubner?

  When we come back, we will drag Professor Moretti back onto some more familiar ground: the economic impact of the daughter effect.

• 9:17Speaker 01

  For children in families with an absentee father due to a firstborn daughter, the family income is reduced by about 50%.

• 9:26Stephen J. Dubner?

  And, me being a hammer, I ask, what should we do about this?

• 9:31Speaker 01

  You're talking about a tax on divorce?

• 9:34Stephen J. Dubner?

  Of course I am.

• 9:35Speaker 01

  Good luck with that.

• 9:56Stephen J. Dubner?

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• 10:41Stephen J. Dubner?

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• 10:59Stephen J. Dubner?

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• 11:44Stephen J. Dubner?

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• 12:06Speaker 02

  From WNYC, this is Freakonomics Radio. Here's your host, Stephen Dubner.

• 12:19Stephen J. Dubner?

  Let's say there's a couple, for the purpose of this conversation, a woman and a man, and they are expecting a baby. Congratulations. And then, they have an ultrasound and they find out that it will be a girl baby. Fantastic. But, uh-oh. The Berkeley economist Enrico Moretti tells us that if this couple isn't married, having a baby daughter instead of a son makes it less likely that they will get married. And if the couple is married, well, that couple is more than 2% more likely to get a divorce. Why?

• 12:55Speaker 01

  Well, there are three fundamental possible explanations. The first one is that parents have a preference for boys over girls. And so when they learn they're gonna have a boy, that makes them happier and keeps the family intact, at least more than when they learn that they have a daughter. Explanation one is therefore, you know, parents are a gender bias. But it's also possible that parents are not gender biased. It's also possible that they like boys and girls equally, but they realize that having a father might be relatively more important for boys than for girls. Either because fathers play an important role model for the boys, or because fathers might have some other type of competitive advantage in raising boys versus girls.

• 13:40Speaker 01

  And there's also a third possible explanation. Again, in this third explanation, there is no gender preference, but parents might realize that girls are more costly to raise than boys in terms of time and or monetary expenses.

• 13:53Stephen J. Dubner?

  Why are girls more costly to raise than boys?

• 13:56Speaker 01

  Well, there's actually, believe it or not, there's actually literature on this question, and it's not perfectly conclusive, but a growing number of studies suggest that girls tend to be more expensive because they require more time and they tend to incur more monetary expenses, especially in the teenage years.

• 14:14Stephen J. Dubner?

  Are we talking expenses? We're talking about what? Are we talking about educational expenses? Are we talking about personal grooming stuff, clothing and makeup?

• 14:21Speaker 01

  Personal expenses.

• 14:22Stephen J. Dubner?

  Uh huh.

• 14:23Speaker 01

  I wanna make clear, this is not something that we found, but this is something that other studies have found.

• 14:27Stephen J. Dubner?

  I understand. Okay, so you identify three possible explanations for why this is happening. One is preferences, just parents prefer boys for whatever reason. Two might be what you call a kind of compensatory behavior where a father would be more likely to stay with a family if there's a boy because he thinks that he needs, it's more harmful for a boy to grow up without a father as a role model. And the third is that it's harder and or costlier to raise girls than boys. Which one or ones of these explanations do you find most plausible or would carry the most weight?

• 15:03Speaker 01

  Well, in order to make progress on that question, we look at fertility decisions. So we look at the decision of having an additional baby after you already have one child. And we compare families who already have one boy with families who already have a daughter. And we look at the probability of going for a second kid. And what we find is that in families with a firstborn daughter, the total number of subsequent children rises significantly. By our estimate, firstborn daughter caused approximately 5,000 additional births per year compared to families with firstborn boys.

• 15:45Stephen J. Dubner?

  And you looked at this over about 40 years. You're talking about 200,000 extra children, you're saying, because of what looks to be a son preference.

• 15:53Speaker 01

  That's right. Families whose firstborn is a boy seems to feel less of a need of having a second kid relative to families whose firstborn is a daughter. And this, in our opinion, is very solid evidence that even today, US parents have strong preferences for boys.

• 16:14Stephen J. Dubner?

  Now, these fathers who skip out on their families if a daughter is born first, whether it's the couple was married or not, this has serious negative consequences, yes? Can you talk for a moment about that?

• 16:28Speaker 01

  The effect are large. For children in families with an absentee father due to a firstborn daughter, the family income is reduced by about 50% and poverty rates are increased by above 30%. So these are economically important effects.

• 16:44Stephen J. Dubner?

  So I know the following question is always a dangerous one because economists especially generally don't like to be prescriptive. But knowing what you know about this issue, if I were the president or a senator or governor and I were to come to you and say, Professor Moretti, I understand you've done some research on this topic, can you recommend a policy idea based on this that would help more families, more children, especially more daughters? Would you do anything about it?

• 17:13Speaker 01

  It's really hard to see what president or congress could do about it. These are deep-seated cultural norms and values. They don't seem to be going away over time. It's pretty clear that being born in a broken family has long-lasting economic consequences. And I think maybe that's where we should focus our energies. I'm not sure it's feasible or even desirable for the government to try to change in any way people preferences.

• 17:45Stephen J. Dubner?

  What about, however, I mean, given the size of that impact, how much a family suffers as a result of divorce? You do believe in incentives. I mean, incentives can even help overcome preferences. So should there be an anti-divorce preference that goes across the board that isn't meant to directly address the son preference, but manages to catch it along the way?

• 18:09Speaker 01

  You're talking about a tax on divorce?

• 18:12Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yes, I am.

• 18:14Speaker 01

  Good luck with that.

• 18:16Stephen J. Dubner?

  Or a marriage bonus, however you want to put it. Or, you know, or I don't know, maybe it's a, maybe it is a firstborn daughter bonus.

• 18:24Speaker 01

  You know, one thing I want to make clear is that the gender of the children is not the only factor determining divorce or marital stability. And in fact, it's not even the main factor in determining divorce or marital stability. There are many, many factors that go into a couple's decision of splitting. And gender is just one of the many factors. And I'm more in favor of thinking about economic policies that can foster family stability. I'm not sure we should specifically target gender of the children as one source of economic policy.

• 19:06Stephen J. Dubner?

  Enrico, are you married?

• 19:09Speaker 01

  Yes, I am.

• 19:10Stephen J. Dubner?

  And do you have any children?

• 19:13Speaker 01

  I have a wonderful four-year boy.

• 19:16Stephen J. Dubner?

  And what is his name?

• 19:18Speaker 01

  Mateo.

• 19:19Stephen J. Dubner?

  Mateo. Did you have a son preference?

• 19:24Speaker 01

  Before having Mateo, I was really, really hoping to have a daughter.

• 19:28Stephen J. Dubner?

  Ah.

• 19:29Speaker 01

  And, but ever since he was born, I am, I find myself delighted at having a boy. And I can't believe I wanted a girl. This is the best thing ever happened to me.

• 19:46Stephen J. Dubner?

  Why did you want a daughter?

• 19:47Speaker 01

  I have, I was hoping to have a daughter that looked exactly like my wife, but much younger.

• 19:54Stephen J. Dubner?

  Does Mateo know yet that you were hoping for a daughter?

• 19:59Speaker 01

  He doesn't, but I don't think he has any concern about that. He's four, he's happy. He's just a bundle of joy.

• 20:07Stephen J. Dubner?

  He doesn't listen to podcasts, does he?

• 20:09Speaker 01

  He doesn't listen to Freakonomics Radio just yet.

• 20:20Stephen J. Dubner?

  So Enrico Moretti's boy Mateo doesn't listen to this program, but John Dolan-Haitlinger does. He's a consultant in Key West, Florida, and he is the guy who wrote in with the original question. He said, "My wife has observed that in marriages where there is a son, there is less chance of the husband leaving the marriage. I wonder if that is true." So after we interviewed Enrico Moretti, and we found out that it is true, we let John know. Here's what he wrote back. "I will tell my wife Eileen she was right, as she typically is."

• 20:59Stephen J. Dubner?

  So, John, thank you for writing, and thanks for giving us ideas, maybe for future podcasts, such as, "How much more likely is a marriage to last when the wife, like Eileen in this case, is usually right?" What about when the husband is usually right? Or when the husband and wife are right and equal? "How much more likely is a marriage to last if the husband and children are more likely..." What's the difference?

• 21:32Stephen J. Dubner?

  Hey, podcast listeners. On the next Freakonomics Radio, you can try to groom your daughter or son to take over the family business. In fact, you can start the minute they're born.

• 21:43Speaker 03

  The generations of Bush men who would be potential heirs of the company are given five little drops of Budweiser beer into their mouths upon being born.

• 21:55Stephen J. Dubner?

  But no matter how hard you try, handing your business over to your child can be a bad idea.

• 22:02Speaker 04

  We actually see drops in performance of these firms after they are transitioning from a founder to the heir between 10% and 20% of profitability.

• 22:16Stephen J. Dubner?

  I mean, a really bad idea. What was his father thinking? It's a great tragedy. On the next episode of Freakonomics Radio, we revisit the Church of Cyanology. We'll talk to you then.

• 22:42Speaker 02

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• 23:22Stephen J. Dubner?

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• 23:53Stephen J. Dubner?

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• 24:38Stephen J. Dubner?

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• 25:03Speaker 05

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