University of Oxford, UK.
J Dev Stud. 2010;46(10):1786-1805. doi: 10.1080/00220388.2010.492948.
Why is it that couples who have a son or whose last child is a son earn higher conditional income? To solve this curious case we tell a detective story: evidence of a phenomenon to be explained, a parade of suspects, a process of elimination from the enquiry, and then the denouement. Given the draconian family planning policy and a common perception that there is strong son preference in rural China, we postulate two main hypotheses: income-based sex selection making it more likely that richer households have sons, and an incentive for households with sons to raise their income. Tests of each hypothesis are conducted. Taken as a whole, the tests cannot reject either hypothesis but they tend to favour the incentive hypothesis; and there is evidence in support of the channels through which the incentive effect might operate. To our knowledge, this is the first study to test these hypotheses against each other in rural China and more generally in developing countries.
为什么有些夫妇有儿子，或者他们的最后一个孩子是儿子，他们就能获得更高的条件收入？为了解决这个奇怪的问题，我们来讲一个侦探故事：解释现象的证据，一连串的嫌疑人，从调查中逐一排除，然后是结局。考虑到严格的计划生育政策和中国农村普遍存在强烈的男孩偏好，我们提出了两个主要假设：基于收入的性别选择使得更富裕的家庭更有可能有儿子，以及有儿子的家庭提高收入的动机。对每个假设都进行了检验。总的来说，这些检验不能否定任何一个假设，但它们往往倾向于激励假设；并且有证据支持激励效应可能通过的渠道。据我们所知，这是首次在中国农村地区，更广泛地在发展中国家，对这些假设进行相互检验的研究。
