Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-4hhp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-02T15:29:40.227Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Parental predetermination of the sex of offspring: II. The attitudes of young married couples with high school and with college education

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 July 2008

Stuart Adelman  and
Saul Rosenzweig
Stuart Adelman
Affiliation:
Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry, Washington University, St Louis, Missouri, USA
Saul Rosenzweig
Affiliation:
Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry, Washington University, St Louis, Missouri, USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

In a previous pilot project (Rosenzweig & Adelman, 1976) the sex choice attitudes of married couples with university (graduate school) education were explored. The present study extends this work by investigating the sex-choice attitudes of high school and partially college-educated subjects. Once again, the basic decision-making unit of husband and wife was sampled. Differences in sex preferences and sex-choice attitudes, based on the size of the marital family (no child, one child), were systematically explored. A greater effort was made to determine the effect of additional information regarding new methods of fetal sex determination, contraception, and related topics on sex-choice attitudes. Questionnaires were completed before and after information had been provided. Discussion was encouraged between husband and wife but discouraged with others. Results indicated that the exercise of sex choice is favoured by the majority of subjects across all three educational groups. Most individuals would employ sex control to ensure a balance of the sexes in a limited, two-child family. Little desire was shown to choose first child sex but active choice of a second child of opposite sex from the first appears a strong probability. Male preference, while pronounced, was a much weaker influence on the desire to make choices than the balance principle. Selective intercourse and a sex-choice pill were acceptable methods of sex control, but both artificial insemination and fetal sex determination combined with selective early abortion were rejected. Added information had a measurable but only slight effect on attitudes. Public education as to the possibilities of sex choice and control will be gradual and sex control will probably be selectively employed in the near future. But general use of such procedures is not imminent. Once put into practice, however, sex choice will create new marital problems that may require professional counselling.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Biosocial Science , Volume 10 , Issue 3 , July 1978 , pp. 235 - 247
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1978

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adelman, S. (1977) Parental Choice of Offspring Sex: an Investigation of the Effects of Information, Education, and Family Size on Sex-choice Attitudes, with Special Reference to the Idiodynamic Bases of Antenatal Sex Preferences. University Microfilm International, Ann Arbor, Michigan.Google Scholar
Cederqvist, L.L. & Fuchs, F. (1970) Antenatal sex determination; a historical review. Clin. Obstet. Gynec. 13, 159.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clare, J.E. & Kiser, C.V. (1951) Social and psychological factors affecting fertility. Preferences for children of given sex in relation to fertility. Millbank meml Fund Q. Bull. 29, 440.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Commission on Population Growth and the American Family. (1972) Population and the American Future, p. 163. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Dahlberg, G. (1948) Do parents want boys or girls? Acta genet. Statist. med. 1, 163.Google ScholarPubMed
Freedman, D.S., Freedman, R. & Whelpton, P.K. (1960) Size of family and preference for children of each sex. Am. J. Sociol. 66, 141.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gini, C. (1951) Combinations and sequences of sexes in human families and mammal litters. Acta genet. Statist. med. 2, 220.Google ScholarPubMed
Gray, E. & Morrison, N.M. (1974) Influence of the combinations of sexes of children on family size. J. Hered. 65, 104.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lieberman, J. (1968) A doctor forecasts determining the sex of a child in advance. New York Times, 11 27, p. 27.Google Scholar
Markle, G.E. & Nam, C.B. (1971) Sex predetermination: its impact on fertility. Soc. Biol. 18, 73.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rosenzweig, S. (1973) Human sexual autonomy as an evolutionary attainment, anticipating proceptive sex choice and idiodynamic bisexuality. In: Contemporary Sexual Behavior: Critical Issues in the 1970’s, pp. 189–230. Edited by Zubin, J. and Money, J.. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.Google Scholar
Rosenzweig, S. (1978) Sex choice by parents in the emerging modal two-child family. In: Introduction to Idiodynamics. (in press.)Google Scholar
Rosenzweig, S. & Adelman, S. (1976) Parental predetermination of the sex of offspring: the attitudes of young married couples with university education. J. biosoc. Sci. 8, 335.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schilling, E. (1966) Experiments in sedimentation and centrifugation of bull spermatozoa and the sex ratio of born calves. J. Reprod. Fert. 11, 469.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sevinc, A. (1968) Experiments on sex control by electrophoretic separation of spermatozoa in the rabbit. J. Reprod. Fert. 16, 7.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shettles, L.B. (1970) Factors influencing sex ratios. Int. J. Gynaec. Obstet. 8, 643.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shettles, L.B. & Rorvik, D.M. (1977) Choose Your Baby’s Sex. Dodd, Mead, New York.Google Scholar
Stinner, W.F. & Mader, P.D. (1975) Sons, daughters or both? An analysis of family sex composition preferences in the Philippines. Demography, 12, 67.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tietung Hospital of Anshan Iron and Steel Company (Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, People’s Republic of China) (1975) Fetal sex prediction by sex chromatin of chorionic villi cells during early pregnancy. Chinese med. J. 1, 117.Google Scholar
Uddenberg, N., Almgren, P.-E. & Nilsson, Å. (1971) Preference for sex of the child among pregnant women. J. biosoc. Sci. 3, 267.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Westoff, C.F., Potter, R.G. Jr, Sagi, C. & Mishler, E.G. (1961) Family Growth in Metropolitan America. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Westoff, C.F. & Rindfuss, R.R. (1974) Sex preselection in the United States: some implications. Science, N.Y. 184, 633.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Whelan, E. (1977) Boy or Girl. Bobbs-Merrill, New York.Google Scholar
Winston, S. (1932) Birth control and the sex ratio at birth. Am. J. Sociol. 38, 231.CrossRefGoogle Scholar