Data from: Parental investment in a Tibetan population does not reflect stated cultural norms

In this paper, we examined both stated norms of gender preference and actual sex-biases in parental investment in a Tibetan pastoralist society. We collected detailed demographic data to examine how biased parental investment had an effect on infant mortality, infant feeding, the length of interbirth intervals and a decision when giving gifts. Our results indicate a mismatch between self-reported son preference and measures of actual parental investment that favour daughters. We interpret this female-biased parental investment as a possible response to daughters generating more economic resources. However, the stated gender preferences of both sexes reflect cultural norms that appear to have remained unchanged over a long period, which may reflect the importance of male roles in the past. Our behavioural measures of parental investment are those most likely to be in the control of women (such as breastfeeding and interbirth interval), so this mismatch between stated preferences and actual biases in investment may be especially true of women.

本研究针对藏族游牧社会，考察了自我宣称的性别偏好规范与亲本投资（parental investment）中的实际性别偏向。我们收集了详细的人口统计数据，以探究偏向型亲本投资对婴儿死亡率、婴儿喂养模式、生育间隔时长以及馈赠礼品决策的影响。研究结果显示，自我报告的男孩偏好与偏向女儿的实际亲本投资水平之间存在错位。我们将这种女性偏向型亲本投资解读为对女儿能够创造更多经济资源的一种适应性回应。不过，两性自述的性别偏好均反映出长期未发生显著变化的文化规范，这或许映射了过往男性角色的重要性。我们所采用的亲本投资行为测量指标多为女性可掌控的行为（如母乳喂养与生育间隔），因此自述偏好与实际投资偏向之间的这种错位在女性群体中或许尤为显著。