Abstract
The proportion of male to female births increases during and shortly after periods of war1,2. We show that the age difference between parents (age of husband−age of wife) predicts the sex of the first child. We also find that in England and Wales, the mean spouse age difference increased during and immediately after the two World Wars and was strongly correlated with the sex ratio during the period 1911-52.
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Manning, J., Anderton, R. & Shutt, M. Parental age gap skews child sex ratio. Nature 389, 344 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1038/38647
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/38647
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