CHANGING PATTERNS OF SON PREFERENCE IN PASHTUN SOCIETY

Abstract

With the passage of time, social norms change leading to a shift in prejudice towards a particular aspect of life. Sociopolitical events shape daily life requirements and needs which in turn take its toll over the obligations of both genders bound by a marriage contract. These pivotal shifts reshape the lens of analysis through which one perceives reality. One such norm that requires an analytical study is the preference of son and how various paradigm shifts have produced reconceptualization of son preference, if any, within a society. This research analyzes son preference for a decade long period from 2007 - 2017 within Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a province of Pakistan. Quantitative method has been used for conducting the research. The data has been taken from the website Pakistan Demographic Health Survey. SPSS software has been used for extracting the results. The objectives of this study are that whether parental education, family structure and urbanization have any effect on the perspective of the people regarding son preference in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. According to the results, it can be concluded that although the overall trend of children preference has decreased, son preference over daughters still prevails. Not only men but women also want to give birth to sons because being a mother of a boy makes their position strong in the family and in their social circle too. It is also obvious by looking at the results that people have started giving importance to acquiring education with the passage of time which has had its impact over children preference. Due to educational careers, people are getting married late leading to a smaller sized family. Urbanization has increased and with urbanization came the paradigm shifts resulting in decreased son preference. Joint family system has deteriorated causing number of children idealized by parents along with son preference to decease