U.S.: More boys wanted!
According to a new Gallup poll on baby gender preferences, people in the U.S. show a slight baby gender preference for having a boy instead of a girl if they were only able to have one child. The telephone poll was conducted last month and included roughly 1,000 American adults. The participants’ baby gender preferences in Stats:
# Boy: 37%
# Girl: 28%
# Either/doesn’t matter: 26%
# Not sure/no opinion: 9%
Among those who favored boys, the top reasons were that men can relate to boys better than to girls, boys can carry on the family name, and boys are easier to raise.
Among those who favored girls, the leading explanations were that mothers can have closer relationships with daughters, they already had one or more daughters, and that girls are easier to raise than boys.
Men were more likely than women to prefer boys, but women didn’t show a similar preference for girls, according to Gallup.
The Gallup baby gender poll began in 1941 and has been conducted occasionally over the last 66 years. Throughout that time, participants have consistently favored boys over girls, given the hypothetical one-child-only limit, though the strength of that preference has waxed and waned over the years.
November 19th, 2007 at 1:17 am
Surveys of this type are a total waste. Who cares? In my opinion, it is quite stupid to prefer one sex over the other. When I see such results, I can’t help but to think of China. Seriously, I think that articles like that just cause more harm than good. Girls shouldn’t be exposed to such garbage. I have two daughters and a son. My girls are the oldest. I can remember when my wife, unexpectadly, became pregant, people would say “so, are you trying for a boy?” or “I bet your husband really wants that son he never had!”. Geesh, all this man ever wanted was kids…healthy kids who would grow up to be respectable individuals. I can’t believe people generalize kids based on gender in this day and age.