Gender And Economics

2 Pages 596 Words

1. The main point of these two articles is that the parents of a girl are more likely to divorce than the parents of a boy. Furthermore, there is a correlation between the more daughters a couple has as opposed to the more sons a couple has. In other words, a couple with three daughters is more likely to divorce than a couple with three sons. However, daughters alone do not cause divorce, because marriages differ in all kinds of ways that might contribute to divorce. With that said, having a daughter or daughters is not by itself the only reason why couples divorce. Many explanations can be offered as to why couples divorce. Such things include financial stress, infidelity, and emotional distance. These two articles believe strongly that daughters in a marriage are in some way a contributing factor to divorce. In both articles Landsburg is quick to point out that this trend is not just in the United States, but also holds truth throughout the world. In some cases, divorce rates are even higher for families with daughters in places like Mexico, Colombia, Kenya, and Vietnam. It should be pointed out that while all these countries have higher rates of divorce than that of the United States with regards to having daughters in a family, Vietnam has the largest rate with 25 percent.

2. With regards to the preference of U.S. parents for sons vs. daughters, the articles suggest that parents would rather have a son than a daughter. It’s hard to say why this is true, but for some reason parents prefer boys so much so that boys hold a lot of marriages together. As for some sort of explanation as to why this is true might have to do with boys growing up to be better economic providers for their parents’ old age. Having to carry on the family name is really important in a lot of families. Therefore, parents would want a boy rather than a girl to continue tradition. With that said, it can’t be overlooked that the male ...