中文導讀
上世紀80年代曾有不少研究表明，第一胎是女孩的夫妻離婚率要比是男孩的要高，近期的一篇研究論文也證實這一點。此現象除了與「重男輕女」有關，還與頭胎女兒的年齡具有很大的相關性。處於青春期的女兒，相比於兒子更難和父親相處，且夫妻易在其教育方式上產生分歧。然而有趣的是，從小和姐妹長大的父親則不存在這個問題。
Daughters provoke parental strife, but only when they are teenagers
DAUGHTERS HAVE long been linked with divorce. Several studies conducted in America since the 1980s provide strong evidence that a couple’s first-born being a girl increases the likelihood of their subsequently splitting up. At the time, the researchers involved speculated that this was an expression of 「son preference」, a phenomenon which, in its most extreme form, manifests itself as the selective abortion or infanticide of female offspring.
Work published in the Economic Journal, however, debunks that particular idea. In 「Daughters and Divorce」, Jan Kabatek of the University of Melbourne and David Ribar of Georgia State University, in Atlanta, confirm that having a female first-born does indeed increase the risk of that child’s parents divorcing, in both America and the Netherlands. But, unlike previous work, their study also looked at the effect of the girl’s age. It found that 「daughter-divorce」 risk emerges only in a first-born girl’s teenage years (see chart). Before they reach the age of 12, daughters are no more linked to couples splitting up than sons are. 「If fathers were really more likely to take off because they preferred sons, surely they wouldn’t wait 13 years to do so,」 reasons Dr Kabatek. Instead, he argues, the fact that the risk is so age-specific requires a different explanation, namely that parents quarrel more over the upbringing of teenage daughters than of teenage sons.
Taken over the years, the daughter effect, though real, is small. In the Netherlands, by the time their first-born is 18, 20.12% of couples will have divorced if that child is a son, compared with 20.48% if she is a daughter—an increase in probability of 1.8%. But in the five years when the first-born is between the ages of 13 and 18, that increase goes up to 5%. And it peaks, at 9%, when the child is 15. In America, for which the data the researchers collected were sparser than those in the Netherlands, the numbers are roughly double this.
Anyone who has—or has been—a teenager knows how turbulent those years can be. Surveys confirm that teenage daughters and fathers, in particular, get on each other’s nerves. They also show that parents of teenage daughters argue more about parenting than do the parents of sons, and that mothers of teenage daughters report significantly more disagreements with their partners over money, and become more open to the idea of divorce. Earlier research has also shown that one of the most common things parents fight over is how much they should control their teenagers』 personal choices, such as how they dress, whom they date and where they work.
In light of all this, it is intriguing to note that Dr Kabatek and Dr Ribar found one type of couple who seem immune to the daughter effect: those in which the father grew up with a sister. Having seen things somewhat from a sister’s point of view may act as a sort of social inoculation. ■
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Feb 6th 2021 • Science and technology • 489 words
文章第三段第一句「Taken over the years, the daughter effect, though real, is small. " 中的 taken 如何理解？
注意這裡用到了 take 的「領會；理解；考慮」這一含義，英文釋義為 to understand or consider sth in a particular way，take 作這一用法時，不用進行時。看一個例句：Taken overall, the project was a success. 總的看來，這個項目是成功的。文中這句話就是在說，從這些年的情況來看，女兒效應雖然真實存在，但卻很小。🔔 查看本文更多講解，歡迎加入《閱讀訓練營》，可免費試學一周
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本文全文摘選自The Economist/《經濟學人》(Feb 6th, 2021)，僅供個人學習交流使用。歡迎轉發至朋友圈。商業轉載請在正文前註明「本文來自新英文雜誌公眾號」。
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