A woman who has a boy out of wedlock is much more likely to marry the father than if she has a girl, U.S. economists reported on Monday. The study, by two University of Washington economists, suggests not only that men may value sons more, but that little girls are more likely to grow up poor. "It may be that parents just feel more strongly that a boy needs a father around or it could be that it's easier to find a husband if your child is a boy," associate economics professor Elaina Rose said in a statement. She and colleague Shelly Lundberg, writing in the May issue of the journal Demography, had earlier found that fathers of sons spend more money on their families and worked more additional hours than the fathers of girls. For this study, they analyzed data from a national study of 600 children born to single mothers and found a woman was 42 times more likely to marry the father of her son than she was to marry the father if the child was a girl. Unmarried mothers of boys were 11 percent more likely to find a husband -- even a husband who was not the child's biological father -- than those with girls. Because children from single-parent homes are more likely to be poor, this is bad news for girls said Lundberg, who is director of the university's Center for Research on Families.
(Agencies) | 5月5日，美国经济学家发布了她们的一项最新研究结论：在未婚妈妈这一群体中，生男孩的女性嫁给孩子父亲的几率比生女孩的女性大，她们更有可能为自己的孩子构建一个完整的家庭。 由华盛顿大学的两位经济学家得出的这一结论不仅暗示着男人的"重男轻女"情结，还预示着跟着未婚妈妈长大的女孩生活会比男孩更悲惨。 参与这一研究的经济学家埃莱娜·罗斯在结论中说："导致这一现象的原因可能是父母普遍认为男孩子的成长更需要有父亲陪伴在身边；还有的未婚母亲会这样认为，如果生的是个男孩，即便不嫁给孩子的父亲，也更容易为自己找到个丈夫。" 罗斯和她的合作者雪莉·伦德伯格还发现，男孩子的父亲为家庭花的钱比女孩子的父亲要多，而他们加班工作的时间也更多一些。她们把这一结论刊登在五月的《人口统计学》杂志上。 两位学者分析了美国的600名未婚妈妈，发现其中生男孩嫁给孩子父亲的几率是生女孩的42倍。而即便不是嫁给孩子的亲生父亲，生男孩后再嫁人的可能性也比生女孩的要多11%。 身为华盛顿大学家庭研究中心主任，雪莉指出，由于未婚母亲的生活水平通常比较低，因此对于生活在这种家庭的女孩子来说，这样的研究结论无疑是个坏消息。 (中国日报网站译) |
Updated: 2003-05-07 01:00
