Events

Jointly organized by Asia Research Institute, and Centre for Family and Population Research, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, National University of Singapore.

CHAIRPERSON

Dr Abhijit Visaria, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore

ABSTRACT

Women’s empowerment is proposed to have immense effects on women’s and their children’s lives as well as socioeconomic development. Previous studies have suggested that the level of women’s empowerment prevalent in the society often goes hand in hand with the level of son preference. In societies where women’s status is low, son preference is usually more prevalent. In Southeast Asia, a few small-sample, qualitative studies done on the topic suggest that there may be a weak to moderate level of son preference in the region. However, no study has explicitly found patterns of sex preference in Southeast Asia, especially with large-scale data. This study seeks for an explicit answer to the question if son preference exists in Southeast Asia, and if women’s empowerment affects such preference.

In this study, women’s empowerment is measured by women’s employment, education and household decision-making. Data from the Demographic and Health Surveys in four countries including Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines and Timor-Leste are used. The results show that there is no evidence of son preference in Southeast Asia; in fact, there is even a preference for daughters. This finding consistently supports the notion that Southeast Asia is an exception in terms of gender equality and sex preference, especially in regard to other countries at similar level of development. The study also finds that son preference among a small proportion of women is influenced more by inside-the-household empowerment factors rather than outside-the-household factors. Specifically, women who have lower household decision-making power tend to prefer more sons than daughters, while women’s education and employment do not seem to have strong effects on son preference.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Ly Phan has recently joined Nanyang Technological University as a postdoctoral research fellow at the School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Global Asia research cluster. She received a PhD from the University of Sydney, a Master degree from the University of Washington and a bachelor degree at the Vietnam National University. Her international education background has contributed significantly to her research focus and worldview. Ly has long-standing research interests in women’s empowerment, population, family, gender, and development in the Asia-Pacific and with a special focus on Southeast Asia. Her research interests reflect her enthusiasm to motivate better social changes for women and girls. She has published a book chapter and several articles in reputable journals, including Population Review and Social Indicators Research. She has won multiple prestigious scholarships and awards such as the Harvard-Yenching Institute Fellowship, the Australian Government Endeavour Award, the Australian Sociological Association Postgraduate Student Paper Award, the Sydney Democracy Network – WZB Berlin fellowship, just to name a few. Currently she is working on expanding her research on measuring women’s empowerment and the relationship with fertility preferences in the Asia-Pacific region, with an ambition to conduct comparative research on a global scale.

REGISTRATION

Admission is free. We would greatly appreciate if you click on the “Register” button above to RSVP.