Gender Atypical Behavior in Chinese School-Aged Children: Its Prevalence and Relation to Sex, Age, and Only Child Status

Abstract

This study had three purposes: (a) to compare the prevalence of boys' and girls' gender-atypical behaviors (GABs) in a sample of Chinese school-aged children, (b) to examine the developmental pattern of GABs in Chinese boys and girls over the age range in question (6–12 years), and (c) to test the effects of being an only child on children's GAB expression. Parents of 486 boys and 417 girls completed a Child Play Behavior and Activity Questionnaire (CPBAQ) in regard to their own children, and a demographic information sheet. The frequency distribution for each gender-related behavior was calculated. The associations between sex, age, and only-child status, and CPBAQ scale scores were examined. Although most GABs (by their very nature) were exhibited infrequently in Chinese children, it was found that girls displayed GABs more frequently than boys did. The prevalence of GABs rose for girls as they grew older, but fell slightly for boys. The expressions of GABs in only children did not differ from that in children with siblings. Possible effects of Chinese culture (including the current only-child policy) on children's GABs are discussed.

Notes

¹Given the sensitive nature of gender-atypical behavior, parents' and guardians' reports are considered as more valid than children's self-reports because children are likely to present themselves favorably. One possible problem with parent-reported information might be that parental responses reflect their perceptions of children's gender-related behaviors rather than children's actual behaviors. This possibility was unlikely to be a serious problem in this study because in our pilot study on 53 children, parental ratings on the gender-related behavior items strongly correlated with children's self-ratings, with rs ranging from .35 to .71. Previous studies using similar instruments have also provided evidence for the validity of such parent-reported questionnaires (e.g., Meyer-Bahlburg, Sandberg, Yager, Dolezal, & Ehrhardt, 1994).

²According to Chinese only child policy, urban couples are only allowed to give birth to one child. In this study, some of the sampled children were born in rural areas and later moved into cities with their parents, and thereby have siblings. This may contribute to the lower percentage of only children in this study (721 out of 903 = 79.84%) than the officially reported data (about 90%) of only children in urban areas. In addition, some parents gave birth to their second or third child in other cities to avoid being punished for violating the only child policy. Therefore, these non-only children may not be registered at the local police station, and were probably missed by the national census.

³The imbalanced sex ratio of only child versus non-only child and of the first born versus non-first born in this sample are noticeable and worthy of explanations. This may be due to some particular rules of the only child policy, which prescribed that, for rural families, only when their first-born child is female are they permitted to give birth to a second child. Another possibility may be that parents still hold traditional views that boys, rather than girls, carry on the ancestral line and, thus, by all means tried to have a boy in their families even with the risk of being punished by the government. Therefore, parents who had a daughter were more likely to give birth to one more child than parents who had a son.

⁴It should be noted that in the actual administration of the Child Play Behavior and Activity Questionnaire, scales for boys and for girls were printed in different versions to avoid respondents' misunderstanding. Only one personal pronoun was used for each item. For example, a Cross-Gender Scale item in the girl's version, “She has stated the wish to be a boy or a man,” would be, “He has stated the wish to be a girl or a woman,” in the boy's version.

Note. N = 486. Values in the table are percentages.

^a This is a Chinese group game.

Note. N = 417. Values in the table are percentages.

⁵The Chinese translation for sissy is niang niang qiang (), and that for tomboy is jia xiao zi (). It should be noted that, in Chinese societies, although jia xiao zi still has some commendatory indications, such as extrovert or active, niang niang qiang was used almost exclusively in a derogatory sense. Therefore, parents may be more reluctant to report their sons being called niang niang qiang than to report their daughters being called jia xiao zi, which may, to some extent, account for the imbalance in the occurrence of this item in boys and girls.

Note. Gender atypical behaviors for boys include the 14 girl typical behavior items and 6 cross gender behavior items. Gender atypical behaviors for girls were the 12 boy typical behavior items and 6 cross gender behavior items. Item counted as positive when rating was scored “2” or higher (“seldom”, “sometimes”, “often” or “always”).

Note. N = 903. GTS = Girl-Typicality Scale; BTS = Boy-Typicality Scale; CGS = Cross-Gender Scale.

Note. Scale scores range from 1 to 5. For boys, n = 486; for girls, n = 417. Means that do not share superscripts differed at the p < .017 level in Tukey's honestly significant difference comparison. BTS = Boy-Typicality Scale; GTS = Girl-Typicality Scale; CGS = Cross-Gender Scale.