Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/161340 
Year of Publication: 
2017
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 10717
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
Being told the sex of your unborn child is a major exogenous 'shock'. In the first study of its kind, we collect before-and-after data from hospital wards. We test for the causal effects of learning child gender upon people's degree of risk-aversion. Using a standard Holt-Laury criterion, the parents of daughters, whether unborn or recently born, are shown to be almost twice as risk-averse as parents of sons. The study demonstrates this in longitudinal ('switching') data and cross-sectional data. The study finds it for fathers and mothers, babies in the womb and recently born children, and for a West European nation and an East European nation.
Subjects: 
pregnancy
risk attitudes
daughters
child gender
Trivers-Willard hypothesis
JEL: 
J16
C93
C90
D81
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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