Center for Demography and Ecology University of Wisconsin-Madison Do Daughters Really Cause Divorce? Stress, Pregnancy and Family Composition Amar Hamoudi Jenna Nobles CDE Working Paper No. 2014-02 Do Daughters Really Cause Divorce? Stress, Pregnancy and Family Composition Amar Hamoudi Jenna Nobles Duke University∗ University of Wisconsin at Madisony This version: December 2013 First version: March 2013 The ideas in this paper have benefited from comments of Elizabeth Ananat, Tim Bruckner, Ray Catalano, Jennifer Beam Dowd, Elizabeth Frankenberg, V. Joseph Hotz, Christopher McKelvey, Alberto Palloni, Elizabeth Peters, and Duncan Thomas, as well as three anonymous referees and our co-participants and attendees at session 161 (“Unions, Fertility, & Children”) at the 2013 annual meeting of the Population Association of America. Research described in this paper was financially supported in part by the Center for Demography of Health and Aging at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Authors are solely responsible for all content. ∗Sanford School of Public Policy, Box 90312, Durham, NC 27708-0413. 919.613.9343.
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[email protected] Abstract Provocative studies have reported that in the United States, marriages producing firstborn daughters are more likely to divorce than those producing firstborn sons. The findings have been interpreted as con- temporary evidence of fathers’ son-preference. Our study explores the potential role of another set of dynamics that may drive these patterns–namely, selection into live birth. Epidemiological evidence in- dicates that the characteristic female survival advantage may begin before birth. If stress accompanying unstable marriages has biological effects on fecundity, a female survival advantage could generate an as- sociation between stability and the sex composition of offspring.