Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/279266 
Year of Publication: 
2023
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 10516
Publisher: 
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo), Munich
Abstract: 
This paper analyzes historical census data from the final Soviet census in 1989. We find that, even in the absence of sex-selective abortions, the fertility decisions of Armenian, Georgian, and Azeri parents living in Russia in the late 1970s and the 1980s were significantly more son-biased than those of other ethnic groups in Russia. This finding suggests that the observed increase in the sex ratio at birth in the Caucasus since the end of the Soviet Union at least partially reflects a deep-rooted cultural preference for sons. Moreover, this result supports one of the key hypotheses of gene-culture coevolution, namely the claim that cultural evolutionary processes can shape selection on the basic components of genetic fitness.
Subjects: 
son preference
sex ratio
sex-selective abortions
historical census data
Caucasus
gene-culture coevolution
JEL: 
J13
J16
Z10
Document Type: 
Working Paper
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