Americans Prefer Having Boys to Girls, Poll Shows

By Audrey Barrick, Christian Post Reporter Saturday, June 25, 2011

More Americans prefer having a boy rather than a girl if they were to have only one child, a new poll reveals.

Forty percent of Americans surveyed by Gallup said they'd want a boy if they could only have one child. Twenty-eight percent chose a girl.

The preference for boys has long been the trend in America. Gallup began asking the question – with slightly different wordings over the years – since 1941. During that year, 38 percent said they preferred a boy.

Men were more likely to say they want a boy (49 percent). Women actually were more likely to choose a girl than a boy (33 percent to 31 percent).

Interestingly, the preference for a boy is strongest among younger Americans. Over half (54 percent) of 18- to 29-year-olds picked having a boy over a girl. Among 30- to 49-year-olds, 39 percent made the same selection.

The Gallup report noted, "The potential impact of attitudes about the preferred gender of one's child has increased in recent years because various techniques for prenatal sex selection have become more widely available – including ways of detecting the gender of a fetus early in the gestation process, and the increasing technological ability to select the sex of a child using in vitro and artificial insemination procedures."

Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted June 9-12, with a random sample of 1,020 adults, aged 18 and older.