
Trivers–Willard Hypothesis - RedAlakazam
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trivers%E2%80%93Willard_hypothesis
======
stazz1
This strongly suggests that in times of repose, women are pregnant with males,
and in times of uncertainty and stress with females. Is this true in your
experience?

Thinking of it like a forest, women are the trees that create further forest
and more life. The tendency for the forest to wish to cover the landscape with
greenery and trees is normal, and once the forest is flourishing the focus
changes to romping and playing.

Tragically and ironically, the 1 child policy in China was likely quite
destructive because it caused so much stress and anxiety, uncertainty, and
therefore mammalian ladies were likely creating mainly females, which were
discarded in favor of males -- seen as the more important choice in times of
scarcity -- in clear cross-facing against the grain of nature as she appears
to play it in such times, according to the suppositions and supports of the
hypothesis.

------
gargarplex
I've also read a study that human couples with more symmetrical faces produce
more daughters than sons.

------
corporateslave5
Quick fact for everyone:

Billionaires have more sons, which is somewhat proof of this for humans

~~~
tsimionescu
Even if that is true, given how easy it is for a billionaire to have an
abortion if they don't want a daughter, and to make sure no one knows about
it, I don't think it's proof of anything directly.

~~~
toasterlovin
I don’t think people are preferentially aborting females to any appreciable
degree in the west. Received wisdom is that boys are a pain in the ass to
rear. And, anecdotally, most parents are interested in having one of each, not
in having one particular sex over the other.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
I think a more likely factor would be stopping after the first child if it's
what you wanted, and trying for more if you really wanted the other.

But there's so many other confounding factors (e.g. do billionaire men have
more testosterone, as either a cause or an effect of their success, do they
have children when they are older but the mothers are younger and so on) that
it offers no evidence on its own.

~~~
toasterlovin
> I think a more likely factor would be stopping after the first child if it's
> what you wanted, and trying for more if you really wanted the other.

In my experience, the primary consideration for most couples is the number of
children. Then, if they want more than one, they want one of each. For
whatever my personal experience is worth (mostly with middle and upper-middle
class Coastal urban people).

------
derekbreden
Anecdotally, my parents had a son while under the financial support of both
sets of my grandparents. Then 4 daughters while only supported by a single not
quite middle class income. Then a 10 year gap and under the support of two
middle class incomes had their second son.

