Most Germans are not concerned about the sex of their children but the majority of Britons would prefer to have an equal number of boys and girls, a German scientist said on Thursday. But if sex selection were allowed for non-medical reasons in either country it would not skew the gender balance, he added.
“Much of the opposition to social sex selection is based on the assumed danger of a sex ratio distortion due to a common preference for boys over girls.
But according to our surveys, this assumption seems to be unfounded,” said Dr. Edgar Dahl, of the Medical Center of the University of Giessen in Germany.
Surveys of more than 1,000 people in Germany and Britain revealed that Britons had stronger gender preferences than Germans and were more open to the idea of using technology to select the sex of their children.
Sixty-eight percent of Britons, wanted the same number of sons and daughters, compared to 30 percent of Germans. Only 16 percent of people in Britain said they did not care about gender, as opposed to 58 percent in Germany.
More Germans also said they would not use gender selection technology if they could.
But in both surveys men had a slight preference for boys and women for girls, according to the study published in the journal Human Reproduction.
“It seems as if couples are sometimes making a deal. ’OK let’s have two kids — a boy for you and a girl for me,” Dahl added.