Desired Sex of Next Child through Three Generations in Manipur (India)

Dillip Chandra Nath, H Brojeshwor Singh, Atanu Bhatacharjee

Abstract


Introduction: The traditional family is generally consisting of three generations having strong bondage among the family members and such bondage has been hypothesized to have a significant role in the desire of sex of the next child.

Objective: To study the desired level of next child sex among the family members of traditional Indian families.

Materials and Methods: A cross sectional retrospective information was collected from 1296 married women during April-November, 2011 in rural areas of four valley districts of Manipur, a state of Indian border with Myanmar using cluster sampling technique. The agreement analysis and odds ratio with Kappa statistics are applied to measure the level of desire of next child sex. The three generations including the child-bearing age couples are considered as the family members.

Results: The level of desire about son by wife (4.73) is found to be higher (P<0.01) than that of her husband (3.42).

Conclusions: The women’s child-bearing period exposes for high pregnancy rate to fulfill the specific desire of all family members. As the behavioral pattern influences the balance of sex, son preference may also be reduced to achieve the balance of sex in the population.


Keywords


Generation fertility, Level of agreement, MCMC, Kappa statistics.

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