DP18551 Gender-biased fertility preferences may decrease fertility: evidence from a counterfactual analysis.

• Guilhem Cassan Milan Van Steenvoort
24 Oct 2023

Gender-biased fertility preferences are prevalent in many societies. They are commonly thought to be a driver of fertility. We show here that this is not necessarily true: switching from gender-biased to gender-neutral fertility preferences can increase fertility. The magnitude and the sign of the variation in fertility depends on the choice of gender-neutral fertility counterfactual. We illustrate our findings using data from the Indian Demographic and Health Surveys and show that gender-biased fertility preferences can lead to a change ranging from -15% to 23% of total excess fertility or -4% to 6% of total fertility