Community | July 08, 2009 | 48 comments

Rich women bear sons, poor women bear daughters

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A new study has linked women's financial status with the proportion of boys and girls they can expect to give birth to. It has revealed that wealthier mothers tend to have more sons while hard-up women produce more daughters.

Is a baby's sex determined just as much by lifestyle and environment as it is by genes?
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48 comments // Rich women bear sons, poor women bear daughters

  • gen468
  • GodsnLiberals
  • metalcookiesxy70
  • FallenMorgan
  • pnuttbuttajelli
    • 0
      pnuttbuttajelli  
    • what's with all the dumb studies, srsly.

      i agree with the person above's theory that maybe women are attracted to wealthy men who are prone to produce more Y chromosomes.

      this logic does not compute, no matter how much scientific jargon you throw at me that says otherwise.

    • 2 years ago
  • Sublimeroman
  • GodsnLiberals
  • Nephwrack
    • 0
      Nephwrack  
    • BOLLOCKS. i'm the 1st of 3 sons to a poor single mother.

      BOLL-OCKS.

      just like that insipid " rich ppl have better sex" article that was on here a while back.

    • 2 years ago
  • ahdbahd
  • GodsnLiberals
  • royulery
    • 0
      royulery  
    • i think it's arm bears. anywayl it's been found (by i forget who) that mothers can develop an allergy to boy babies if they have had too many boys. the article i read was about why the 3rd son has a high chance of being gay.

    • 2 years ago
  • amphigoryglory
    • 0
      amphigoryglory  
    • This is just a correlation not a causation. The news does this a lot, it's sick. Headlines: "WINTER CAUSES CRIMES!" Just because more crimes happen in the winter doesn't mean that it causes it.

    • 2 years ago
  • nilmahj
  • bombastinator
  • chivideoguy
    • 0
      chivideoguy  
    • I don't know about all that, but Victoria Beckham's body is BANGING!!!!! that tight ass dress leaves little to the imagination. so hot

    • 2 years ago
  • stevieuk
  • Theekshani
    • 0
      Theekshani  
    • Just by reading the article you can tell that the possibility of bearing a boy vs a girl is so small it might as well be dumb luck

    • 2 years ago
  • photochick
    • 0
      photochick  
    • HOGWASH!!!! hahaha that is the most "creative" news piece I've read in awhile. Does that include wealthy aliens from another planet?? haha

      I have three sons and three grandsons. I already know I'm "rich" from all of them, but its not in a monetary way!

      And look at Theresa from the NJ Housewives! She's a millionaire+ and she has three daughters!

    • 2 years ago
  • calm_incense
  • CarlosIsDown
  • tawnybabe
    • 0
      tawnybabe  
    • This is a fallacy. Scientifically, the sex of the offspring is determined by the father. The mother's sex chromosomes XX versus the father's XY.

    • 2 years ago
  • noxidereus
    • 0
      noxidereus  
    • Lifestyle does not change the odds of conceiving a girl vs a boy, that is ridiculous since the sex is determined by the sperm. However, not ridiculous is the fact that girl babies are truly tougher and have a slightly higher chance of surviving than do boys. Of course poor people don't have as good health care as rich people because our health insurance system is currently for-profit (unfortunately), so I would suppose that poor women would lose more babies in general, and since girls are tougher, they'll have more girls than boys, while rich women will more likely be in better health and lose less babies overall.

      "According to evolutionary theory, when conditions are good, and babies are likely to be healthy, a mother's best chance of passing on her genes to another generation is to have boys."

      This quote is misleading and it gives us a clue that the author of this article isn't too bright. This quote would only make sense if men typically go out and get multiple women pregnant. Further, this quote makes absolutely no evolutionary sense whatsoever. There is no evolutionary adaption to change the fact that the sex is determined by the sperm.

      Also, if in some magical world where scientific facts don't matter, there was some sort of adaption to have more boys than girls, or if you consider China where they abort baby girls in favor of boys, the gender ratio would get out of whack and it wouldn't be beneficial to the species. Too many dicks and not enough chicks, to put it crudely. In that case, the advantage switches to females, as they would be more likely to have offspring than men. Some of the men wouldn't be able to find a mate, but most/all of the women would.

      The article is dumb.

    • 2 years ago
  • div
  • RaceBannon
  • meli8
  • shroomfairy
  • kevinthedude
  • shroomfairy
  • Blood13
    • 0
      Blood13  
    • What an absurd study. The fact that people actually receive money in order to research and support these outrageous claims sickens me.

    • 2 years ago
  • lobodegris
    • 0
      lobodegris  
    • Might also be due to the fact that wealthier women tend to bear children later in life and therefore do a lot more planning, ie. timing their cycles to try to conceive at the most fertile time. Male sperm are faster so if conception is "scheduled" - more boys.

    • 2 years ago
  • div
  • lexid523
    • 0
      lexid523  
    • Could it be that even in our so-called "enlightened" first-world, Western culture that some of the wealthy would prefer their property be handed down to a male heir, thus resulting in the selective abortion of female fetuses?

    • 2 years ago
  • bombastinator
  • lexid523
    • 0
      lexid523  
    • lexid523:

      Right, that's my point. The rich have an easier time of finding out what the baby will be, so if they don't want a girl, they won't have a girl. The poor are less able to do selective abortions like that.

    • 2 years ago
  • bombastinator
    • 0
      bombastinator  
    • Yes and no. The magic is in the very last line of the article. Look at the amount of difference they are claiming as significant. It's really tiny. This is a statistical study which means there is a margin of error. Whether you think this error either proves or disproves the supposition is based entirely on how great the margin of error is in the study.

      One thing is for sure though: If the answer to the study is that there was no difference it wouldn't be news would it.

      Another possibility might be that senior wives have been married to the man longer. We do know that a woman who has an orgasm is slightly more likely to have a male child. Maybe it's just that the older wives were married to the man back when he was still young enough to get their motor going.

    • 2 years ago
  • alivein85
  • Maeveeo
  • Chheang
    • 0
      Chheang  
    • Agreed... I think there's a false correlation here. Maybe "rich women" marry men who are more prone to produce the Y chromosome?

    • 2 years ago
  • seanalyn
    • 0
      seanalyn  
    • Chheang:

      Agreed, it would make more sense.

      Then again this just goes to show you how much bullshit most "studies" are seeing as this one happened to get basic biology wrong.

    • 2 years ago
  • Vierotchka
    • 0
      Vierotchka  
    • Chheang:

      Not exactly - it is among other things the degree of acidity of the woman's reproductive apparatus which has an effect. Indeed - X-bearing sperms are more resistant to higher acid environments and live longer, whereas Y-bearing sperms are more vulnerable and have shorter lives but swim faster but don't last as long. So, if the woman is impregnated shortly after releasing her egg, chances are that a slow-moving X-bearing sperm will reach the egg first, as it will survive long enough for the longer trip. If she is impregnated a couple or three days after ovulating, it is more likely that a fast-moving Y-bearing sperm will reach the egg first. If the woman's reproductive organs have a higher than normal rate of acidity, chances are that she will only bear girls as the Y-bearing sperms will be killed by the acidity.

    • 2 years ago
  • abbym0308
    • 0
      abbym0308  
    • Wait, doesn't this go against everything we learned in biology? I thought that the chromosomes that determine the baby's sex (X or Y) come from the sperm. Am I wrong?

    • 2 years ago
  • akassan
  • singrrr
  • annabell
  • Vierotchka
  • Acedia
    • 0
      Acedia  
    • abbym0308:

      I have never heard of males with XX chromosomes, nor females with XY chromosomes. Unless basic human biology has changed since I learned about it, that would be a biological contradiction, so excuse me for not believing you.

    • 2 years ago
  • Vierotchka
    • 0
      Vierotchka  
    • abbym0308:

      Acedia, you only disbelieve me because you are pretty ignorant of the subject. See:

      http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WG6-45F4N51-14&am...

      and

      http://www.isna.org/faq/y_chromosome

      Excerpt:

      In fact, there’s a whole lot more to maleness and femaleness than X or Y chromosomes. About 1 in 20,000 men has no Y chromosome, instead having 2 Xs. This means that in the United States there are about 7,500 men without a Y chromosome. The equivalent situation - females who have XY instead of XX chromosomes - can occur for a variety of reasons and overall is similar in frequency.

      For these 15,000 or more individuals in the US (and who knows how many worldwide), their chromosomes are irrelevant. It is the total complement of their genes along with their life experiences (physical, mental, social) that makes them who they are (or any of us, for that matter). The last time I counted, there were at least 30 genes that have been found to have important roles in the development of sex in either humans or mice. Of these 30 or so genes 3 are located on the X chromosome, 1 on the Y chromosome and the rest are on other chromosomes, called autosomes (on chromosomes 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 17, 19).

    • 2 years ago
  • Acedia
    • 0
      Acedia  
    • abbym0308:

      Fair enough, though my skepticism was due, in part, to the notion that you were claiming it was commonplace. Though I can see now that that was not what you were claiming, but rather simply that it occurs. I may have been wrong, but at least I learned something new, so it's not all bad.

    • 2 years ago
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