Gender Gap, Intra Household Bargaining, and Sex-Selective Abortion in Albania

Keiti Kondi

Albania has by far the highest sex ratio at birth with 1.12 boys per girls, compared to the European average of 1.058. We analyze a mechanism that measures the sensitivity between sex ratios, potential gender gap measures and investment in children. Focusing on the reasons behind parent’s choice for the sex of their children by considering different preferences for each of them we develop a minimalistic model which incorporates different utilities for children, the bargaining between family members and the decision about abortion dependant on its cost, which affects decisions on the composition of the family. We calibrate the model using data of the DHS dataset on Albania for the year 2008. Furthermore we find for what values of the gender gap and investment in children we can get normal values of the sex ratio. To conclude we propose policies to be associated to the decline of the sex ratio disparity.

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 Presented in Session 10. Fertility, Family Planning, Sexual Behavior & Reproductive Health 2