Gender bias in fertility choices: how son preference increases the risk of short birth intervals in India
Soumen Barik, Dewaram A. Nagdeve, Priyanka Patel, Mayank Singh · 2026
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Description
Barik and co-authors studied birth spacing in India for this 2026 paper in Tropical Medicine and Health. Closely spaced births raise risks for mothers and children. Drawing on a national family health survey, the team asked whether a preference for sons pushes families toward shorter gaps between births.
They analyzed records for more than one hundred seventeen thousand married women with at least two births. Women who preferred sons had modestly higher odds of a short interval. Household wealth explained the largest share of the gap, while education narrowed it. The authors urge family planning programs that tackle son preference directly, not only clinic access.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Soumen Barik, Dewaram A. Nagdeve, Priyanka Patel, Mayank Singh |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 49 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |