On December 11, according
to my doctors’ best guesstimate, I am due to give birth to a baby girl. My husband and I couldn’t be happier. Most parents, however? They’d rather
have a boy.
By The Numbers
44%
the
increase in a U.S. woman’s paycheck from 1970 to 2007
6%
the salary increase for an
American man over the same time
2024
the year when the average American woman may
outearn the average American man
45%
Swedish government officials who are women
51.4%
American managers who are women (way up from a meager 26.1% in 1980)
33
countries that have had a female president. (But not, of course, the U.S.!)
51%
U.S. personal wealth held by women
83%
U.S. consumer purchases made by women
$0.63
what a Wyoming woman gets for every dollar a man earns
$0.84
what a woman gets in Vermont
5
average number of children for an American mother in the 1960s; it’s down to 2.5 now
21
average age of a first-time mom in 1970; it’s up to 25 now
87
life expectancy (in
years) of the average Japanese woman
8.5%
unemployment rate for U.S. women
9.5%
unemployment rate for U.S. men
74%
women on teams that created ads for this article
3%
female creative directors in the ad industry
It may not be surprising that there’s a lingering preference for baby boys over baby girls worldwide. What’s alarming, however, is that this
global inclination is manifesting more strongly than ever. Historically, when nature is allowed to determine sex all on its own, about 105 boys are
born for every 100 girls (and because women live longer, the ratio of people on the planet evens out over time, even tilting slightly toward
females). But the balance of nature has shifted in Asia, thanks to wider availability of affordable ultrasound equipment, which detects gender as
early as 15 weeks, and widespread abortion. In China, after 30-plus years of the country’s One Child Policy, the ratio of boys to girls is a highly
unnatural 120:100 (it’s even reached 150:100 in one province). In India, 109 boys are born for every 100 girls. Demographers calculate that roughly
160 million Asian females have gone what they euphemistically categorize as “missing.” There’s growing evidence that this pattern of sex selection
is being followed in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, and similar trends seem likely in Africa and the Middle East.
a boy.
Lest we think this is some sort of second- and third-world predicament, it turns out boys are still No. 1 in the United States too. A 2011 Gallup
poll revealed that if American men between the ages of 18 and 49 could have only one child, 54% would want a boy; “no preference,” at 26%, beat out
girls, who rated a measly 19%. According to the same poll, women don’t have a preference; but since it takes two to tango, as the song goes, that
makes for heavy pressure in favor of “a masculine child,” as Luca Brasi so eloquently put it in The Godfather. These figures have remained
essentially unchanged for 70 years–the stats were the same in 1941. While it may be culturally taboo here to openly reject or abort a child based
on gender, fears of second-class status and doubts of a daughter’s potential value are remarkably persistent.
In India and China, the preference for sons is seen as pragmatic and economically sound, a choice often exercised by educated, upwardly mobile
parents, making this a form of “consumer eugenics” (a term coined by Mara Hvistendahl, the author of the 2011 book Unnatural Selection).
Cultures with such a pronounced boy bias tend to also have a tradition of “patrilocality,” where daughters go to live with their husbands’ families,
while sons stay at home and inherit property. In China, where one-child families have been official policy since 1979, the aging population has
resulted in the so-called 4-2-1 problem: four grandparents, two parents, and just one child. According to the old customs, that one child, the
economic mainstay, had better be a boy. The situation in India is similar. As one newspaper ad for sonograms put it: “Spend 500 rupees now or
500,000 rupees later”–on a dowry.
