Russia's Maternal Capital policy initially increased total fertility rates, stimulating much discussion on whether it would result in more births or only earlier births. Effects of that policy upon different ethnic groups within Russia, however, have not received systematic attention. Varying demographic, socioeconomic and cultural characteristics of ethnic groups in Russia provide a unique opportunity to assess policy responsiveness, especially in light of the potential expectation that culturally traditional ethnic groups or ethnic groups with lower levels of education and labor market participance may be more responsive to pronatalist policies. We use discrete event history models on IPUMS microdata from the Russian Census of 2010 to consider initial changes in birth probabilities after the Maternal Capital policy was introduced in 2007. The analysis concentrates on births of second children as this parity transition was the first to offer eligibility to the Maternal Capital benefit. Our results show, contrary to the expectation, that effects of the Maternal Capital were stronger among ethnic groups that had higher levels of education and labor market participation of women. Considering demographic patterns, we do not find evidence suggesting that ethnic groups with recently high fertility were more responsive, as might be expected. Instead, ethnic groups with a more intense fertility decline in the preceding period appeared immune to the policy. Our findings imply that pronatalist policies may not be effective when they coincide with deep social changes such as those that lead to intense fertility decline.

The paper studies cross-cohort changes of son preference effects upon parity progressions. In many countries of South Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa women are more likely to have another child when they do not have a living son. However, little is known about how son preference in parity progressions changes over time or across birth cohorts of women in those countries. Understanding these changes is crucial, as son preference in parity progressions contributes to higher fertility rates and reinforces gender inequalities within families. The paper concentrates on son preference in parity progressions across 1950-89 birth cohorts of women in eight countries of the studied regions: Bangladesh, Egypt, Jordan, Nepal, Türkiye, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The studied cohorts were in their reproductive period in the time of fertility decrease in the process of the First Demographic Transition. Particularly, rates of transition to the 3rd child were consistently decreasing from the older to the younger cohorts. Birth histories from World Fertility Surveys and Demographic and Health Surveys are analyzed using event history techniques. Results show that the importance of not having a son increased for progression to the 3rd child in more recent cohorts. Having no daughter was not associated with higher progression risk in any of the cohorts. Son preference therefore persists despite social changes that may be expected to balance the value of sons and daughters, such as urbanization and the growth of women's educational levels. In this aspect the studied countries are in sharp contrast with countries of Western and Northern Europe in the time of the First Demographic Transition, where son preference effects in parity progressions disappeared in the process of fertility decrease. Possible reasons for the stability of son preference in the countries under study are discussed. The cross-cohort dynamics of son preference in parity progressions are also compared to dynamics of sex-selective abortions in other countries of Asia known from earlier studies. Son preference in parity progressions appears to be generally more stable than sex-selective abortions, another manifestation of a higher value of sons, likely because the societal consequences of sex-selective abortions are more visible and widely recognized.

The paper explores the relative roles of men’s and women’s sex composition preferences for women’s desire to stop childbearing in developing countries. The analysis covers 45 countries, using Demographic and Health Survey couples datasets from the years 2010 to 2021. Probabilities of women’s desire to stop childbearing are considered when the sex composition of children matches the ideals of both the woman and her partner, of the woman or her partner only, and of neither of them. Models with country fixed effects are estimated for two pooled samples, one including couples from Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where sex composition of children is rarely linked to fertility, and the other one including couples from all other regions. The analysis has shown that in case men and women disagreed on whether current sex composition of children matched their ideals, women’s unmatched preferences were more strongly related to their desires to have one more child, both in and outside SSA. In the non-SSA countries, agreement of both spouses in their dissatisfaction with sex composition of children additionally raised the probability of women’s desire for the next child. However, men’s unmatched fertility preferences played no role in women’s fertility desires in SSA. Both the priority of women’s sex composition ideal for children and the importance of agreement between spouses are not expected in the context of family patriarchy. The results suggest that developing countries are not in a sharp contrast on roles of men and women in taking fertility decisions, at least in what concerns sex composition of children.

Fertility control seriously increased in most low and middle income countries during the recent half-century, making the role of parents’ preferences for children higher than it was before. Among these preferences, gender preferences deserve special attention. Parents’ desires to reach certain gender composition of children have various demographic consequences: in some countries they support fertility levels, whereas in others they result in dramatic disproportions of men and women in the population. At the same time, relative values of daughters and sons for parents give as a powerful “lens” through which gender asymmetries in the society can be observed. The preference to have more sons than daughters (or to have at least one son) is of special interest in this aspect, because it reflects patriarchal norms and values which are strongly present in many societies of the world. 

This doctoral dissertation in sociological demography concentrates on dynamics of preference for sons in those countries of Asia and Africa where this preference was known to be widely observed at least some decades ago. Under fertility decrease in these countries, gender preferences for children are expected to stronger shape reproductive behavior. At the same time, social changes going in these countries, like urbanization, growth of women’s educational levels and labor market participance, are associated with higher gender egalitarianism compared to “traditional” agrarian societies. Do parents depart from son preference to the preference for balanced gender composition in this context? The dissertation contributes to studying this issue, looking consecutively at three dimensions of gender preferences for children: gender composition ideals, desires to have one more child and actual fertility. 

The dissertation consists of three independent studies. Study I offers the first attempt to systematically compare role of men’s and women’s gender composition ideals about children for fertility in low and middle income countries. Analyzing data of Demographic and Health Surveys held in 45 countries between 2010 and 2021, it demonstrates that, in contrast to earlier results of some country-specific studies, women’s unmatched gender composition ideals have stronger impact upon plans to have one more child than unmatched ideals of their partners. Study II considers how women’s desires about the next child depend upon gender composition of children already born in nine countries where son preference dominates in actual fertility. It is shown that while desires to have one more child within a short time period are associated with having no son, the desire to stop fertility is most probable among women who have children of both sexes. However, as shown in Study III, the preference for balanced gender composition of children so far hardly penetrates from desires for the next child to actual fertility: in countries of Asia and North Africa where son preference is mainly observed in parity progressions, its effects become only stronger in transition to the third parity from the 1950s to the 1980s birth cohorts of women. 

The thesis contributes to knowledge on fertility change in low and middle income countries and can be helpful in elaborating policy measures against negative demographic consequences of “asymmtetric” gender preferences for children.

This paper studies the role of gender preferences for children in formation of desires for the next child in nine countries of the Middle East and North Africa, South and Central Asia, the Caucasus and Balkans. For all countries selected for the study, effects of son preference have been detected in actual fertility during recent decades, but gender preferences in desires for the next child have been studied much less systematically. Using Demographic and Health Surveys conducted in these countries in 2010–2021, desires to stop fertility and to have a child within 2 years are considered separately for women with one and two living children. For women with one living child, the gender of that child has a significant effect on these desires only in South-Asian countries, where women who only have a daughter are more likely to want to have another child within 2 years and less likely to want to stop childbearing compared to women who only have a son. For women with two living children, in most of the considered countries, the desire to have another child within 2 years only shows a preference for having at least one son, whereas the desire to stop fertility shows effects of balanced gender preference in six out of the nine countries. The preference for a balanced gender composition of children observed for the desire to stop fertility actualizes the question of whether a son preference will remain unchallenged in actual fertility in these countries in the near future. In the final section, possible social correlates of son preference and balanced gender preference are discussed on the example of two countries, Bangladesh and Nepal.

The paper studies the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on fertility in Russian regions. Our central hypothesis suggests that the pandemic conduced the postponement of childbearing because the socioeconomic uncertainty increased starting with 2020. We used the data from a quantitative survey of women of reproductive ages held in June-July 2022 in three regions of Russia (Republic of Dagestan, Kirov and Tver' regions). The choice of these regions was justified by their differences in some relevant fertility characteristics in the pre-pandemic period. The analysis using proportional hazard models (event history analysis) has shown that the pandemic was followed by a significant decrease in the probability of the second, but not the first births in these regions. Two possible explanations for this asymmetry of birth orders are suggested. One of them was based on the experience of earlier crises in Russia when the fertility of second children was more affected than that of the first children. Another possible explanation was based on the changes in Russia's pronatalist policy measures implemented right before the pandemic.

The paper considers son preference effects оn actual fertility behaviour in Kyrgyzstan, a post-Soviet country of Central Asia. Using data from the DHS2012 and DHS1997, I argue that risks of transitions to parities from the second to the fifth are significantly higher among women with no sons. Furthermore, the relation of risks of parity progressions to sex composition of children already born is not generally stronger in families with strict gender asymmetries. Attempting to explain this, I show that in such families, contraceptive use is less frequent – and that could complicate the implementation of son preference in such families and weaken their expected contrast with other families in the role of son preference for fertility outcomes. The possibility also is discussed that son preference may be supported by factors not related to family-internal norms, such as the need for all families to have a male heir for securing family wealth. 

The paper studies cross-cohort changes of son preference effects upon parity progressions. In many countries of South Asia, Central Asia, Middle East and North Africa women are more likely to have another child when they do not have a living son. However, little is known about how son preference in parity progressions changes over time or across birth cohorts of women in those countries. Understanding these changes if crucial, as son preference in parity progressions contributes to higher fertility rates and reinforces gender inequalities within families. The paper concentrates on son preference in progressions to the third child across 1950-89 birth cohorts of women in eight countries of the studied regions. Birth histories from World Fertility Surveys and Demographic and Health Surveys are analyzed using event history techniques. Results show that the importance of not having a son increased in more recent cohorts at the same time that overall third birth transition rates declined. Having no daughter was not associated with higher progression risk in any of the cohorts. Son preference therefore persists and has even increased despite social changes that may be expected to balance the value of sons and daughters, such as urbanization and growth of women educational levels. Son preference in parity progressions appears to be generally more stable than sex-selective abortions, another manifestation of higher value of sons, likely because the societal consequences of sex-selective abortions are more visible and widely recognized.