abstract: The study of son preference in India has been the focus of research for a few decades. The desire for sons leads to unfavorable consequences for daughters such as unequal access to resources, abortion, and female infanticide. Work on men's education and son preference is relatively scarce and this dissertation contributes to existing literature by exploring this relationship from a life course perspective. I have argued that education changes men's attitudes towards son preference by encouraging them to re-evaluate traditional gender roles and that this relationship is mediated by wealth. I use the National Family and Health Survey-III to examine fertility intentions and behaviors as measures of son preference. I have found support for some of my hypotheses. The findings from three studies walk through the different phases of reproduction for the Indian man. They show that son preference manifests itself at the beginning when there are no children, is strongly present after the birth of children, and then shows itself again at the end when the man wishes to stop childbearing. Being educated leads to the preference of sons being weaker and this is perhaps due to traditional gender roles being challenged. Wealth may mediate the relationship between men's education and son preference at the beginning, but does not act as a mediator once children are born. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Sociology 2013
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:asu.edu/item:18747 |
| Date | January 2013 |
| Contributors | Sabharwal, Rebha (Author), Hayford, Sarah R (Advisor), Agadjanian, Victor (Committee member), Yabiku, Scott T (Committee member), Arizona State University (Publisher) |
| Source Sets | Arizona State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Doctoral Dissertation |
| Format | 103 pages |
| Rights | http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/, All Rights Reserved |
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