High property prices and economic development have begun to erode China’s traditional preference for sons, leading to a rise in the number of Chinese parents who say they would prefer a daughter.

　　But the conventional wisdom – that China is a land of unwanted girls– is being turned on its head as urbanisation increases the cost of raising male heirs and erodes the advantage of having sons to work the fields and support parents in their dotage.

　　According to a recent World Bank report, the gender imbalance favouring boys peaked in Beijing and a few provinces in 1995 and has fallen since then. Additional provinces saw a similar trend in 2000, raising expectations that the country as a whole may have turned a corner with regard to female offspring. Internet chat groups have sprang up where women exchange advice on how to conceive girls.

　　Rising property prices are driving the change, which is expected to be confirmed by China’s once-a-decade census , because Chinese families must traditionally buy a flat for a son before he can marry.

　　“My husband and I don’t earn much and I can’t imagine how we can buy a flat for a son,” says Zhang Aiqin of Pujiang in Zhejiang province.”

　　“And it is not only a flat,” says Zhang Yun, a Shanxi province native who lives in Shanghai, alluding to the cost of educating and marrying off a boy. “Sons bring economic pressure...[but] ‘a daughter is a warm jacket for a mother’ when she is old,” she says, quoting an ancient Chinese idiom to illustrate the fact that many urbanised Chinese think daughters are better caregivers.　

　　Traditionally, sons were preferred – and still are, in some rural areas – because only they can carry the family name.“If you gave birth to a girl, the whole family would look down on you,” says Zhang Yun, 27, herself an unwanted daughter. She says her paternal grandmother ignored her throughout her childhood because she was a girl. “That could be one reason I want a girl now,” she says.