India still prefers sons over daughters: survey

• A huge majority of the Indian population still wishes for a male child.
• 80% of survey participants say they want at least one son in their family.
• Over 15% people tell surveyors they wish for more sons than daughters. 

A huge majority of the Indian population still wishes for a male child, a recent Indian government survey showed.

The BBC reported that even though the country's sex ratio has improved, the desire for a son remains. 

The figures from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) show that almost 80% of the participants wanted at least one male child in their family.

The preference comes from the old belief of sons have the capacity to continue the bloodline and take care of the parents when they grow old.

Over the last century, censuses have shown there have been more men than women in India. For the first time, the NFHS-5 survey done between 2019-2021 showed more females.

However, despite the better sex ratio, the preference for male children remains, with more than 15% of people telling surveyors they wished for more sons than daughters. 

On the brighter side, the desire to have a daughter has increased from 4.96% to 5.17%. Even though the numbers are small, it shows that some Indian parents do want daughters more than they want sons.