Does the gender of the child affect acceptance of the one-child certificate? The case of Shaanxi province, China.

The author investigates the impact of gender on both acceptance of the one-child certificate and contraceptive use in Shaanxi province, China. "We found a weak association...in both the cross-classification and multiple classification analyses of the 1988 Two-per-Thousand Survey data. However,...[son preference] remains a clear tendency in rural areas, but the low proportion of the one-child certificate acceptors reflects the existence of stronger preferences for larger family size and specific sex composition.... By contrast, the high percentage of urban acceptors of the one-child certificate, regardless of the gender of the child, implies that son preference has decreased in urban areas of Shaanxi Province." excerpt