Sex of first child: like migrant father, like son

Abstract

Abstract As males in Mexico have the authority in households and dominate migration flows to the US, this paper argues that having a son as the first child provides an early additional candidate for the anchor position in Mexico and for migration trips to the US, making households better off. Fathers with longer migration experiences have higher expectations for future migration trips and stronger incentives to manipulate the sex of their first child. The empirical analysis confirms that by presenting positive effects of fathers’ previous migration experiences on the probability of having a son as a firstborn child, though abortions are widely illegal in Mexico.