Son Targeting Fertility and Gender Violence Norms in the South Caucasus

• In Event: 1450 - Foreign aid, NGOs, and Private Corporations in Women's Lives

Abstract

This research examines the connection between son preference behaviors and attitudes toward intimate partner violence (IPV). The mechanisms for son preference and IPV attitudes, while not explicitly connected in the extant literature, have a number of parallel theoretical underpinnings. In both cases, improvements in women's social and economic statuses are thought to enhance their relational statuses in the domestic sphere, engendering more egalitarian conditions that would undermine risks of violence and mitigate pressures to have a son. Yet, status measures often do not correspond with decreasing levels of son preference and at times, is associated with higher risks of partner violence. This indicates the need for a closer unpacking of resource and normatively driven status indicators. Using data from six Demographic and Health Surveys (Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, and Ukraine), this research employs a series of multivariate logistic regressions. This research predicts that women are more likely to use contraceptives if a son is already born, a signal for son targeting behaviors. Furthermore, son targeting behaviors are hypothesized to be higher in magnitude when attitudes toward partner violence are more tolerant. The findings suggest that women with sons are more likely to use contraceptives across these six countries. While formal and waged working mitigates the sex selection effect, the odds of sex selection are heightened for women who are more accepting of wife beating and women who live in contexts where wife beating is more normative. Taken together, this research highlights the importance of distinguishing gender and development components of son preference dynamics and better understanding the key gender normative structures that underpin both son preference and IPV risks.

Author

• Joseph Svec, Iowa State University