Using data from 60 countries, we measure how much couples agree on sex preferences for children and whether differences in sex preferences are associated with gender gaps in children's education. Results show extensive disagreement in sex preferences for children, with husbands far more likely to want more sons but their wives more likely to prefer having equal numbers of boys and girls, wanting more daughters, or having no preference. India has the highest share of agreement on sex preferences (59 percent), and Niger has the lowest (32 percent). The association between couples’ sex preferences and gender gaps in education differs considerably by country. In some countries, girls have worse outcomes when their parents agree on son preference and better ones when parents agree on daughter/no preference. But there are numerous counter‐examples as well. Gender gaps in education appear more often when wives hold son preference but not their husbands than the reverse combination. Agreement on daughter/no preference is the only category that is systematically associated with better outcomes for girls relative to boys (although even here there are caveats). Balanced preference (wanting as many boys as girls) is an ambiguous category with heterogenous patterns in terms of educational gender gaps.

中文翻译：

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关于子女性别偏好和子女教育性别差距的配偶协议


我们使用来自 60 个国家的数据来衡量夫妻对孩子的性别偏好的一致程度，以及性别偏好的差异是否与孩子教育方面的性别差距有关。结果显示，人们对孩子的性别偏好存在广泛分歧，丈夫更有可能想要更多的儿子，但妻子更有可能更喜欢男孩和女孩数量相等、想要更多的女儿，或者没有偏好。印度对性别偏好的认同比例最高（59%），尼日尔最低（32%）。夫妻性别偏好与教育性别差距之间的关联因国家而异。在一些国家，当父母同意男孩偏好时，女孩的结果会更差；而当父母同意女儿/不偏好时，女孩的结果会更好。但也有很多反例。当妻子重男轻女而不是丈夫重男轻女时，教育方面的性别差距比相反的组合更容易出现。对女儿/无偏好的同意是唯一与女孩相对于男孩更好的结果系统相关的类别（尽管即使在这里也有警告）。平衡偏好（想要与女孩一样多的男孩）是一个模糊的类别，在教育性别差距方面具有异质模式。