Son preference and Chinese women's biological health risk in middle and older age: A life course study

Abstract

Son preference is a severe form of gender discrimination and can impair women's health. Drawing on retrospective data from a nationally representative sample, this life course study examines how experience of guardians’ son preference in childhood is associated with Chinese women's health in middle and older age. Using imbalanced sex ratio at birth at the prefecture level as a proxy, this study also examines the health implications of adulthood exposure to regional son preference. Our regression estimates show that childhood experience of the male guardian's son preference is associated with higher biological risks of developing systemic inflammation at the 2015 follow-up among middle-aged and older women who were disease-free at the 2011 baseline. In contrast, childhood experience of the female guardian's son preference is associated with lower risk of developing systemic inflammation or hypertension at the follow-up, conditional on being disease-free at the baseline. Adulthood exposure to stronger regional son preference is associated with higher risk of hypertension at the follow-up, independent of childhood experience of guardians’ son preference.