Do girls cause divorce? David

Do girls cause divorce?

David Leonhardt describes recent economics research suggesting that:

"In every decade since the 1940's, couples with girls indeed divorced more often than those with boys, United States Census Bureau data showed. The effect was not huge - just a few percentage points - but it was unmistakable. It happened in every region of the country. It happened among whites more than blacks and among people with only high school diplomas more than those with college degrees.

"Over the last 60 years, parents with an only child that was a girl were 6 percent more likely to split up than parents of a single boy. The gap rose to 8 percent for parents of two girls versus those of two boys, 10 percent for families with three children of the same sex and 13 percent for four. Every year, more than 10,000 American divorces appear to stem partly from the number of girls in the family..."

See "It's a Girl! (Will the Economy Suffer?)" in today's New York Times (Oct 26) for the full article. This article will probably only be available on line for a short time.

These research results have been covered elsewhere. I can think of two columns by Steven Landsburg in Slate, "Oh, No: It's a Girl! Do daughters cause divorce?" on October 2, and "Maybe Parents Don't Like Boys Better. A follow-up to the recent column about whether daughters cause divorce." on October 14.