Why Has Son-Preference Disappeared in North Korea?

This paper investigates gender discrimination among 2,793 children living in post-famine North Korea by calculating male-to-female ratios of standard socioeconomic indicators. We have found that traditional son-preference has disappeared in North Korea and that, contrary to both Confucianism and communism, there is even a moderate preference for daughters. This might be a result of North Korea's socialist agenda, as well as the traumatic famine of the 1990s that has shifted household resources to daughters due to their genetic resiliency in crisis periods, in combination with income decisions of parents to invest in daughters in the emerging post-Cold War economy.