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Son preference in Japan

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Abstract

We examine the sex preference in Japan, using Japanese microdata, and find that parents in the 1920–1939 cohort have a lexicographic son preference. Further, the lexicographic son preference disappears in subsequent cohorts and a mixed preference is observed in parents with two children. These results are supported when the parents’ socioeconomic background is considered. Cohort effects such as weakening son preference and emerging mixed preference are observed. Moreover, when husbands are the eldest sons, a lexicographic son preference is observed only in the 1920–1939 cohort, although it persists in the subsequent cohorts when husbands are farmers/self-employed workers.

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Notes

  1. This survey contains information on how many children the respondents have even if they have more than five children.

  2. If we change this from 5 years to 10 years, the result of the following analysis in this section is similar.

  3. We cannot have the ratio of no sons because there are no respondents born in 1965–1969 who have no sons.

  4. The variables on the family background are suppressed. The authors can provide the complete tables upon request.

  5. We calculate the semielasticity of the hazard with respect to explanatory variables x using \([\textit{e}^x -1] \times 100 \) if the coefficient is larger than 0.3.

  6. Readers may think that there is multicollinearity between village, father_wife’s_name, father_agr_self, and father_eldest_son. However, the correlation coefficient between father_agr_self and village is the highest but is only 0.22.

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Acknowledgements

We are greatly indebted to anonymous referees and Charles Yuji Horioka for their kind advice, comments, and discussion throughout the process of writing this paper. We would also like to thank Tetsushi Homma, Daiji Kawaguchi, Colin McKenzie, Hideki Mizukami, James Raymo, Kei Sakata, Shizuka Sekita, Sawako Shirahase, Keiko Tamada, and the seminar participants at the University of Toyama, the Japanese Economic Association meeting of September 2007, and Prof. Horioka’s graduate seminar for their helpful comments and discussions. In addition, we thank the National Family Research of Japan and the Information Center for Social Science Research on Japan, Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo (SSJ Data Archive), for permitting us to use data from the study “Trails of Families in Post-War Japan” (in Japanese, Sengo Nihon no Kazoku no Ayumi) (SSJDA0400). We are also indebted to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of the Japanese government for the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (numbers 18330068 and 19330062) for supporting this research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, Hibiya Kokusai Building 6th Floor, 2-2-3 Uchisaiwai-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, 100-0011, Japan

    Wataru Kureishi

  2. Faculty of Economics, Osaka Prefecture University, 1-1, Gakuen-cho, Naka-ku, Sakai, Osaka, 599-8531, Japan

    Midori Wakabayashi

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  1. Wataru Kureishi
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  2. Midori Wakabayashi
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Correspondence to Wataru Kureishi.

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Responsible editor: Junsen Zhang

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Kureishi, W., Wakabayashi, M. Son preference in Japan. J Popul Econ 24, 873–893 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00148-009-0282-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00148-009-0282-3

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