ASIAN JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

Son preference is regarded as an institution with aspects such as patrilineality, patrilocality and the increased utility of sons over daughters. The desire for sons leads to unfavorable consequences for daughters such as unequal access to resources, abortion, and female infanticide. Without understanding why the male-child preference is there in the society, further reduction in the fertility may become increasingly more difficult to achieve unless there is concomitant decline in the preference for the male-child. An attempt has been made in this study to explore the relationship between son preference and associated socio-economic factors. The present study is entirely based on primary data collected from rural and urban areas of Cooch Behar district, West Bengal. The sample units of the study are women of reproductive age (15–49 years) who are currently in union with their partners, non-sterilized and willing to give birth in future. It was found that age at marriage time, pale of residents, education, working status and standard of living of the respondents are significantly correlated with fertility preference. In addition, factors associated with women's’ personal life are more important than social or family life. Therefore, this study recommend governments to take more initiatives to improve the quality of life of women specially in rural areas through schemes related to education, entrepreneurship etc. Moreover, ground level implementation of policies to discourage early marriage among girls, promoting use of contraception is required.