Son Preference and Human Capital Investment among China’s Rural-urban Migrant Households

We use several datasets to study whether son preference prevails in the human capital investment among Chinese rural-urban migrant households. We find that son preference exists among the rural migrants’ households and that it caused lower probabilities relative to that of their boy counterparts that school-age girls will migrate with their parents – a difference that is absent for children of preschool age. We also find that (1) migrant households with multiple children tend to take their sons to migrate more than they take their daughters, and (2) parents of boy students spend more on their children’s education can be largely explained by the extra costs of schooling for migrant households. Our results suggest that son preference is detrimental to human capital investment for girls in contemporary China when institutional arrangements result in high costs of schooling for migrants.