Is balancing the sex of their children important to New Zealand parents? Evidence from recent birth data looks at whether New Zealand parents have preferences for sons or daughters, and whether the sex of previous children affects family size.
Are parents of two or three children of the same sex more likely than other couples to have an additional child, and do they do so in order to have at least one girl and one boy?
This study by Statistics New Zealand, based on births between 2007 and 2015, found that parents with children all of the same sex are slightly more likely to have a third or fourth child than parents with at least one boy and one girl. This may have a minor effect on family size. We found, however, that parents did not have a preference for boys over girls or vice versa.