Son preference and sterilisation use among young married women in two slums in Bengaluru city, India

Abstract

This paper explores the ways in which women's sterilisation decisions are influenced by the combination of a preference for male children and a desire for smaller family size among young married women in two urban slums in Bengaluru, India. While both son preference and an emphasis on sterilisation are well-known demographic characteristics of most South Asian countries, relatively little research has been conducted that links the two. We take advantage of a longitudinal survey of 416 unsterilised married women aged 16–25 to explore how having sons and the number of children influence a woman's sterilisation decision. Discrete-time event history techniques are used to estimate two models: the first examines the effect of having sons and number of children separately, and the second examines them in combination in the form of an interaction. The results suggest sterilisation is motivated by son preference mainly at lower parities (three or fewer children) and by concerns about family size at higher parities. Understanding how sterilisation and other reproductive behaviours are influenced by the interaction of family size and sex preferences will help policy-makers and programmers to meet the needs of women while continuing to address discriminatory behaviour against females.

Keywords:

• sterilisation
• India
• son preference
• fertility
• Bengaluru

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Laura Brady for excellent research assistance on this paper. This research was supported by grant R01HD041731 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of NICHD.

Notes

1. In the context of this paper, ‘sterilisation’ refers exclusively to female sterilisation.

2. To examine the potential effect of sample attrition on the analyses in this paper, we conducted statistical tests to examine whether women who dropped out of the study were different from those who did not. The only variable for which the difference was statistically significant was whether the husband had an SSLC/10+ years of education, with women moderately more likely to drop out if their husband was highly educated.

3. About 128 women were childless at baseline, 188 were already sterilised and 5 had either missing values or other data inconsistencies.

4. In order to reduce multicollinearity, both of these variables were centred around their means in the model, including the interaction term.

5. The predicted probability of being sterilised was calculated separately for each combination of having sons (Yes, No), and the number of children (ranging between one and five). The remaining variables are held at their means throughout the simulation.

6. It is not possible to compare the two groups of women beyond parity four as there is only one case in the data, a woman who had at least one son.