Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/300891 
Year of Publication: 
2024
Series/Report no.: 
GLO Discussion Paper No. 1474
Publisher: 
Global Labor Organization (GLO), Essen
Abstract: 
We explore the link between child gender and household financial decisions within a cultural environment that strongly favours having a son. Using data from the China Household Finance Survey (CHFS), we find that the presence of a daughter is associated with a lower saving rate, consistent with the hypothesis that the relative under-supply of unmarried women generates a less competitive marriage market for families with daughters vs. those with sons. As a result, such families have lower incentives to endow their daughters with bigger asset pools to enhance their marital prospects. The correlation becomes more pronounced as the daughter approaches marriageable age, and it is more common among families where the head has low financial literacy and limited education and lives in rural areas.
Subjects: 
daughter
household investment decisions
family savings
marriage market
JEL: 
D14
G11
G51
J12
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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