Researchers say “not so fast” to claims that daughters cause divorce. They argue that girls may be hardier than boys, even in the womb, and more likely to survive pregnancies stressed by a troubled marriage.
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In the United States, couples with daughters are somewhat more likely to divorce than couples with sons. Many scholars have read those numbers as evidence that daughters cause divorce.
Previous studies have argued that fathers prefer boys and are more likely to stay in marriages that produce sons. Conversely, the argument runs, men are more likely to leave a marriage that produces daughters. That scholarly claim has been around for decades, and has gained a following in popular culture.
“Many have suggested that girls have a negative effect on the stability of their parents’ union,” says Duke University economist Amar Hamoudi, who co-authored the new study with Jenna Nobles, a University of Wisconsin-Madison sociologist. “We are saying: ‘Not so fast.’”
ROBUST FEMALES
Hamoudi, who teaches in the Sanford School of Public Policy and is a fellow of the Duke Center for Child and Family Policy, points to a very different potential explanation for differing divorce rates: the robustness of female embryos.
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