Preference for sons over daughters is widespread in many Asian
countries, for example, India, China, and South Korea. This paper
models endogenous sex choice and shows that unbalanced sex ratios
are but one of several possible consequences of a preference
for sons. In particular, if parents want children who reproduce,
nonrandom mating may cause women to be consistently born into
low-status families and thus relegated to a permanent underclass.
The paper also discusses possible links between son preference and
marriage patterns such as spousal age gaps, hypergamy (women
marrying up), caste endogamy, and cousin marriages.