Using Korean data, this study investigates whether son-favoring ideas or the preference for sons affect fertility decisions. Son-favoring fertility behavior in Korea is of interest because the sex ratio at birth has recovered to a natural level after having been very skewed. To isolate the effects of the preference for sons from the effects of the surrounding environment, we compare the fertility behavior of individuals living in the same region but who were born in different regions or years. Exploiting the male-female gap in educational achievement at the parents’ time and place of birth as exogenous variation in the 2000 Census Korea 2% sample, we find that the strength of son preference formed at an early age is associated with the strength of son-favoring fertility behavior as adults. Our results indicate that parents are more likely to have a third child if they happen to have only daughters as their first two children. More importantly, this tendency is stronger if parents were born in a spatiotemporal region with more skewed gender gap in educational investment. These findings are robust against various alternative specifications, including endogenous migration issues.

中文翻译：

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儿子的偏好和生育决定：韩国时空变化的证据。

这项研究使用韩国的数据，调查了偏爱儿子的想法或对儿子的偏爱是否会影响生育决策。在韩国，有利于儿子的生育行为是令人感兴趣的，因为出生时的性别比例在严重倾斜后已恢复到自然水平。为了将对儿子的偏好与周围环境的影响隔离开来，我们比较了居住在同一地区但出生在不同地区或不同年龄的人的生育行为。利用2000年人口普查韩国2％样本中的外生差异分析父母在父母的时间和出生地点的教育成就中的男女差距，我们发现，在早期形成的儿子偏好强度与儿子的强度相关-有利于成年后的生育行为。我们的结果表明，如果父母碰巧只有女儿作为前两个孩子，则他们更可能生育第三个孩子。更重要的是，如果父母出生在时空地区，其教育投资中的性别差距更加偏斜，这种趋势就更明显。这些发现针对各种替代规范（包括内源性迁移问题）是可靠的。