Icelanders prefer daughters to sons
Women who have two sons are more likely to try for a third child than women with two daughters. Photo/AFP
According to new research figures it seems that women are waiting a bit longer to have children than before. Icelanders also seem to prefer having daughters to sons.
These new figures on childbirth in Iceland are from research made between 1982 - 2013 by Ari Klængur Jónsson who is a doctoral student in sociological demography at Stockholm University. Ari's research is focused on fertility and family dynamics in modern Iceland, and he is working with Icelandic register data.
The research was published in the scientific journal Demographic Research.
"The average age of a mother when she first has a child in Iceland is still very low, around two years lower than in Sweden," says Jónsson speaking to today's Morgunblaðið. "But research shows that women are slowly starting to have their first child later in life and are now more likely to become first time mothers past the age of thirty than before."
Women who have two boys already are 14% more likely to try for a third baby than women who already have a son and a daughter. When a mother has two daughters that figure is 4 percent. "There shouldn't be a difference there except in that people must be looking into the sex of the child when trying for a third child. What I read from this is that Icelanders are slightly more fond of having daughters, something that has also been happening in the other Nordic countries."
