Emerging gender indifference? Demographic indicators of a changing gender system

The dissertation examines whether changes in the societal gender system have led to an emerging parental "gender indifference", meaning that parents are less behaviorally and attitudinally concerned about the sex composition of their children. The dissertation considers several topics within this theme.;First, for much of the twentieth century, parents in the United States with two children of the same sex were more likely to have a third child than were parents with one son and one daughter, that is they had specific sex preferences. Using multiple cycles of the Current Population Survey (CPS) and National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), I examine the strength of this sex preference effect on both fertility behavior and intentions over multiple decades. Changes in the societal gender system are expected to weaken this pronatalist effect in recent periods. Consistent with this expectation, there has been some attenuation of the effect of sex composition of previous children on the third birth, suggesting declining salience of children's gender for parents.;Second, I re-examine findings that couples with daughters (as opposed to sons) have higher risks of separation/divorce. I analyze the CPS and the NSFG. Consistent with previous research I find that the effect of having daughters versus sons, while modest in size, was clearly visible in the 1960--79 period. However, for subsequent time periods this effect is attenuated sharply. I stress these findings' substantive import, i.e., I argue that sons increase the fathers' involvement in parenting and, thus, are stability producing. Gender indifference has weakened the connection between a child's sex and the father's involvement with children providing an explanation for the attenuated effect in more recent periods.;Finally, I directly test the mechanism invoked in the previous topic by examining reports of father's affective and behavioral involvement with sons and daughters, and effects on marital stability using bivariate probit models and the National Survey of Families and Households. Consistent with gender indifference, fathers from previous periods were more involved with sons, but since 1980 fathers are involved with sons and daughters equally. Involvement affects marital stability through spousal marital satisfaction.