Babies and Divorce

DUBNER: I understand. O.K. 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 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?

A recent episode of the Freakonomics podcast looked at the following question: Does having a baby girl or baby boy influence whether or not a couple decides to get a divorce or stay together? Some research says yes, families with first-born daughters are likelier to get a divorce, though it all seems dubious to me since divorces are hyper-personal and are caused by so many different things other than children.

Plus the consequences:

MORETTI: For children and families with absentee fathers due to a first-born daughter, family income is reduced by about 50 percent and poverty rates are increased by about 30 percent. So these are economically important effects.

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