1.1. A pronounced effect of educational level

Whatever the socio-economic categories, proxied here by educational level, most couples (91%) in the sample asked to know their child’s sex (Figure 1).

Some significant variations are nonetheless discernible. Asking about the child’s sex becomes less frequent as educational level increases. Among couples where the woman has a lower-secondary qualification, 96% have asked versus 86% among those with a post-graduate qualification. A similar gradient is found for fathers, among whom the proportions are 95% and 84%, respectively. Thus, the proportion of highly educated couples (15%) who did not want to know their child’s sex before the birth is 3 times higher than among low-educated couples (5%).

This variation by educational level may be due to social differences in attitudes to the medicalization of pregnancy, in the propensity to challenge dominant social norms, in the desire to be seen as having distinctive practices, or in the tolerance of uncertainty. For example, highly educated couples have a stronger tendency to distance themselves from the numerous social injunctions to prepare for the birth on the basis of the child’s sex [3].

1.2. A stronger propensity to ask among young parents expecting a first child

Alongside educational level, certain demographic, cultural, and family characteristics play a smaller role in the discerning the child’s sex before birth.

Young parents aged under 30 asked to know the child’s sex more often than the others (Figure 1).² More specifically, among the small number of mothers aged under 25 (who represented 14% of the cohabiting couples), 97% asked about the child’s sex versus 92% at ages 25–29 and 89% at ages 30 and over. But the youngest women were also more often those expecting their first child, and being a first-time parent is also associated with a slightly higher propensity to ask: 92.5% versus 90% among parents who already have one or more children (Figure 2), for whom the desire to know depends partly on the sex of the existing child or children. When parents of two children had two boys or two girls, they were more likely to ask than when they already had a boy and a girl. This may be explained by the desire to have a gender ‘balance’ in the family, with at least one boy and one girl, as is commonly observed in Europe [4]. Parents wishing to achieve this ‘balance’ may be eager to find out as soon as possible whether they have succeeded. Knowing the child’s sex in advance gives them the time to get over any temporary disappointment should the child’s sex not be what they wished for. This has already been shown in analyses based on interviews with families expecting a child [3].

Preference for a daughter or a son also affects the desire to know the child’s sex before birth. Slightly fewer than half of the mothers (45%) and fathers (41%) expressed a preference for a boy or a girl, and these couples more often wanted to know the child’s sex in advance. Conversely, the fathers, and even more so, the mothers who reported no preferences for the sex of the unborn child³ less often asked to be told (Figure 1). For example, 90% of women who reported no sex preference for their first child wanted to know if it was a boy or a girl versus slightly more than 97% of those who reported a preference. This tendency among mothers is found for all birth orders. The most highly educated parents, mentioned above, are those who both least often asked to know the child’s sex and those who least often expressed a sex preference. For example, 62% of mothers with a post-graduate qualification reported no preference versus 48% of the least educated mothers.

The mothers and, to a lesser extent, the fathers who regularly attend religious services asked to know the sex of the child much less often than the others: 86% among the mothers who attend at least once a month compared with 90% of those who attend occasionally and 92% of those who never attend (Figure 1). This does not signify, however, that these religiously inclined parents are more distanced from gender norms; the shares reporting a preference or no preference are the same as among those who attend religious services occasionally or not at all.

1.3. A modest effect of pregnancy follow-up

The sex of a child is determined in a specific setting, generally that of a pregnancy follow-up consultation, where the parents have access to the technology required. By offering to tell them the sex of their child or answering their request for this information, health professionals are contributing to today’s widespread social expectation that parents will have this knowledge before the baby is born. Conditions of access to this information may differ, however, according to the mode of pregnancy follow-up, i.e. the type of professional consulted or the number of consultations and ultrasound scans. Seven antenatal consultations and three scans are recommended during pregnancy, but 65% of the women in the sample had eight or more consultations, and 64% had more than three scans.

Parents were slightly more likely to learn the child’s sex during pregnancy in certain situations. When the woman benefited from a large number of antenatal consultations (12 or more) or scans (five or more), couples slightly more frequently asked to know the child’s sex (Table 1). The small observed differences⁴ may be partly due to ‘windfall effects’ linked to the number of consultations. Each visit and ultrasound scan provides a new opportunity to ask. Moreover, women who have unusually high numbers of consultations and scans may have medical problems for which it is important to know the child’s sex.

When the mother was followed primarily by an obstetrical specialist (gynaecologist, obstetrician, or midwife), couples asked to know the sex slightly more often (91%) than when she was followed by a general practitioner (88%). The small minority of pregnant women followed by general practitioners—who rarely perform ultrasound scans, which limits the opportunities for a couple to know the child’s sex—may have been unable to access a specialist or may have preferred a less medicalized form of follow-up.

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The question ‘Is it a boy or a girl?’ is now routinely asked to future parents by family and friends. Asking to know the sex of an unborn child has become a norm with which just 1 in 10 couples do not wish to comply. Parents generally argue that asking to know the sex is justified by the need to plan appropriately for the birth by buying the right clothes, choosing a name, decorating the bedroom, preparing older siblings for the arrival of a sister or brother, and preparing oneself to become a mother or a father of a girl or a boy [5]. They also argue that learning the child’s sex is an important moment for establishing a bond with their future child and personalizing the foetus as a gendered human being [6, 7]. These arguments and practices reveal the central importance of gender in the pregnancy. The desire to know the sex of an unborn child can be seen as a manifestation of the process of placing each individual in a gender category that associates anatomical sex with a series of masculine and feminine social roles. Learning a child’s sex before birth is one of a set of practices whereby most families distinguish the arrival of a son or a daughter. To what extent this advance knowledge influences the subsequent socialization of small girls and small boys is a question that needs to be further explored.