Mothers Spend More on Daughters While Fathers Spend More on Sons

Do Mothers Spend More on Daughters While Fathers Spend More on Sons? Lambrianos Nikiforidis, Kristina M. Durante, Joseph P. Redden and Vladas Griskevicius. Journal of Consumer Psychology, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3050165

Abstract

Do parents favor some children over others? The overwhelming majority of parents state that they treat their children equally, but parents rarely track their spending on each child. We investigate in four studies whether mothers and fathers favor specific children depending on the biological sex of the child. Evidence from the field, laboratory, and community (online panel) showed that parents exhibit systematic biases when forced to choose between spending on sons and daughters. Mothers consistently favored daughters, whereas fathers consistently favored sons. For example, parents were more likely to choose a real prize and give a real U.S. Treasury bond to the child of the same sex as themselves. These parenting biases were found in two different cultures and appear to be driven by parents identifying more strongly with children of the same sex as the parent.

Layperson Abstract

Research Finds Women Spend More Money on Daughters and Men Spend More on Sons

Parents spend more money on a child of the same sex as themselves. From estate planning and savings bonds to back-to-school supplies and cash allowances, women spend more on daughters and men spend more on sons. New research from the State University of New York, Oneonta, Rutgers Business School, and the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management finds that consumers favor investment in children who are the same sex as themselves because parents identify more strongly with children of the same sex.

This research, forthcoming in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, provides some of the first evidence that the biological sex of a child leads to a systematic bias with parents allocating more resources to the child who is the same sex as they are. Nikiforidis and colleagues became interested in this research because prior research had produced mixed results, with some research suggesting that parents spend more on boys and other research finding that girls receive more investment, particularly when a mother has a greater say in household spending. For the current study, the researchers focused their prediction on the idea that parents might systematically (if unwittingly) invest more in the child of the same sex because they more closely identify with that child.

This is consistent with the idea that people tend to spend money on things that align with their identity, and gift giving to one’s children can be a way for parents to bolster their sense of identity and live vicariously through their children. Because parents likely identify more with a child of the same sex, Nikiforidis and colleagues proposed that parents should exhibit a sex-matching bias when investing across their children.

“Although the idea that parents might play favorites is not new—we’ve all heard adages such as “like father, like son” or “daddy’s girl”—most parents strongly deny favoring one child over the other,” says Lambrianos Nikiforidis, an assistant professor of marketing at the State University of New York, Oneonta. “Even though parents say they do not have a favorite, they also admit they do not actively track investment in each child, which leaves room for bias.”

In one study, researchers had parents in the US and India who had children of each gender living at home make a decision about which of their children (son or daughter) would receive a treasury bond. Mothers were more likely to choose their daughter to receive the bond and fathers were more likely to choose the son because they identified more strongly with the child that was the same sex as themselves. These same effects emerged when parents were deciding which child would receive more in their will, and when selecting which child would participate in a drawing to win back-to-school supplies, with 76% of women choosing the girl and 87% of men choosing the boy as the recipient of the back-to-school prize pack.

The current findings have far-reaching implications. “For example, when men control the family’s financial decisions, then sons may chronically receive more resources than daughters. By contrast, if women are the primary shoppers, this can result in subtle but consistent favoritism for daughters,” says Nikiforidis. In single parent or same-sex parent households, the ramifications of this bias can be even stronger, given that there is no opposite-direction bias from the other parent to even things out.

Although the research focused on parents, it was also found that non-parents favored investing in a same-sex child. This suggests that the sex-matching bias leads to a general favoritism of same-sex people when investing resources. If more men are in positions of corporate and political power, this can translate to greater investment in programs and policies that favor men, and have implications in settings such as work, organizations, schools, charities, and more.