ABSTRACT
Recent estimates of sex ratios, the ratio of male persons to female persons in a given population, suggest a potential impending crisis for international and domestic policymakers. One of the most commonly cited explanations for household-level gender discrimination in the developing world is household economics and gender bias in the labor force. Imbalanced sex ratios also directly decrease the number of marriageable women, a phenomenon commonly referred to as a 'marriage squeeze'. In South Korea, however, women's improved economic status has been associated with a rise in female births in recent years, indicating that at least some of this bias is mediated by the macrostructural gender environment, especially women's rising income potential. One way female births are prevented is through 'stopping rules' in which parents stop bearing children after they have achieved their desired number of sons.
