For much of history, sons were generally considered more desirable because they inherited family names and property, earned money and continued the family line. Girls were often expected to marry into another family or care for relatives. New data suggests that this preference is beginning to weaken—and may even be reversing in some wealthier countries.
The shift is visible in countries including Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Portugal and the Czech Republic, where available figures indicate a preference for girls. In the United States, prospective adoptive parents have reportedly been willing to pay an average of $16,000 more for a girl than a boy, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. Leading American IVF clinics have also reported that between 75% and 80% of patients seeking the procedure want a girl. Unlike in the UK, sex selection is legal for IVF in the US.
The changing attitudes are also appearing in gender-reveal culture. What began in 2008 as a small celebration involving a cake has become an elaborate online genre featuring balloons, smoke, pyrotechnics, choreographed performances and other spectacles. More recently, viral videos have focused on parents reacting with apparent disappointment or distress when the reveal is blue and they learn they are expecting a boy.
The trend is more than an internet curiosity. Ruth Whippman, author of BoyMom and the mother of three boys, says parents in progressive communities increasingly describe boys as difficult or even inherently harmful. She links that perception to concerns about toxic masculinity, online misogyny and the manosphere. In her view, raising a son can be framed less as an opportunity and more as an attempt to prevent him from becoming a harmful man.
Whippman says that cultural disapproval affected her own experience of becoming a mother to boys. She recalls people telling her they hoped she would eventually have a girl, comments that reinforced her fear that sons were somehow considered second best. She also observes that some fathers now openly say they would prefer daughters.
Other explanations are more practical. Parents are having fewer children and starting families later, when they may have less energy for children perceived as especially physical or difficult to manage. Midwife Lara Miller says older parents can be more attached to their routines and therefore feel overwhelmed by the energy associated with some young boys.
Childcare professional Alex Trippier argues that biology and socialization may both play a role in differences in behavior. He points to developmental testosterone surges around the age of two, while also noting that social expectations shape how children behave. He says parents now face a distinct set of anxieties about sons, including pornography, gaming addiction, academic performance and online algorithms.
Miller also believes that schools do not always accommodate boys effectively. She says boys may receive poorer reports because they do not fit the prevailing school model, while activities and reading materials are often more closely aligned with girls’ performance. These experiences can reinforce the belief that raising boys is unusually challenging.
Psychological concerns play a role as well. Dr. Chrissy Jayarajah, a psychiatrist who has written academically about “gender disappointment,” says becoming a parent often prompts people to reconsider their own relationships with their parents. Previous experiences—including difficult relationships with fathers, absent parents or abuse—can influence how someone feels about having a son or daughter.
Jayarajah says some mothers want to recreate positive memories from their childhoods, while others fear repeating harmful family patterns. For people who have experienced abuse, the sex of a baby can become connected to fears about either repeating the past or seeing aspects of a perpetrator in their child. She stresses that “gender disappointment” is not a clinical diagnosis, although the phenomenon is widely discussed online.
The reversal also raises concerns about gender essentialism. According to Jayarajah, society is more focused on gender than ever, partly because platforms such as social media make gender-related ideas constantly visible. Expectations about what it means to be a boy or a girl can therefore become attached to an unborn child before birth.
The development contrasts sharply with the historical consequences of son preference. In China and India, discrimination against girls, including sex-selective abortion, abandonment and infanticide, has contributed to populations with significantly more boys than girls. Economist Amartya Sen estimated in 1990 that more than 100 million women were “missing” from history, although researchers have since challenged the exact figure and methodology.
At the same time, global fertility has fallen from approximately 3.3 children per woman in 1990 to around 2.2 or 2.3 today. More than half the world’s countries are already below replacement level. Against that backdrop, favoring one sex over the other adds another layer to an already significant demographic change.
The growing preference for girls may represent progress away from centuries of discrimination, but the article argues that it can also create a new form of bias. Treating girls as better or sons as inherently problematic reduces children to gendered expectations before they have had the chance to develop their own identities.
Sources: GQ.