We propose a novel apples-to-apples comparison strategy to identify the effect of boy preference on girls’ physical health from endogenous sibling gender composition. Employing an instrumental variable approach and data from the Chinese Family Panel Studies, we find that the presence of...

We propose a novel apples-to-apples comparison strategy to identify the causal effect of son preference on child physical health from endogenous sibling gender composition. Using first-born boy ratio within a community as an instrument and data from the Chinese Family Panel Studies, we find that...