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Previous research has shown that child gender has significant effects on household behavior in developing countries. More recently, research on parents in developed countries has shown that child gender affects many aspects of parents’ behavior, including parents’ labor supply (Shelly Lundberg and Elaina Rose 2002; Lundberg 2005), marital stability (Gordon B. Dahl and Enrico Moretti 2004; Lundberg and Rose 2003), and time spent with children (Lundberg, Sabrina Wulff Pabilonia, and WardBatts 2006). One hypothesis as to why parents behave differently depending on child gender is that there is a gender preference, i.e., fathers prefer sons. This appears to be a reasonable explanation for the difference in parental behavior by child gender in some developing countries where the eldest male son and his wife traditionally provide old-age security for his parents. It is less clear why preference for a son would be a significant explanation for the difference in parental behavior by child gender in an industrialized country such as the United States, where Social Security and private pensions are used as support in old age, and there is greater gender equality in the workplace. Using the March Current Population Survey (CPS) Supplement, we examine US parents to determine whether having a son rather than a daughter has a significant effect on parents’ labor supply, and whether the cultural preferences of immigrants play a role in generating the effects of child gender on US parents’ labor supply. If preference for a son is the only explanation, then we would expect to find that immigrant status increases the effect of having a son on parents’ The Effect of Child Gender on Parents’ Labor Supply: An Examination of Natives, Immigrants, and their Children |
