Monday, March 10, 2008

Are girls more likely to get divorced than boys?

Thinking about binomial families reminded me of some research I read about: Unmarried mothers are less likely to form a permanent (or even a temporary cohabiting) relationship with the child’s father if the child is a girl

This set me to wondering if the probability of divorce is higher for families which do not include a son

I am not suggesting that fathers value daughters less than sons (though they may). Both parents might consider that a girl suffers less from the loss of a father in the house

The ONS website provides statistics of the ages of children of divorcing couples, but nothing on their sex, as far as I can see

I have had no success finding anything via Google, except a new appreciation of the reason why people now prefer the term gender to sex

Related post: Binomial families