Sex of Third and Subsequent Kids: A Poll

In My Humble Opinion
21

GGG
GGB
BGGG
GGGG
BBGG

Most people I know are 1 of 2 siblings…

22

GGGGB (2nd and third G were a set of twins)
BBBB

23

My great grandparents’ children:

GGGGB (last two were twins)

Brother’s family:

GGB

People I knew when I was a kid:

BBBBBBBB (last 6 were 3 sets of twins)

What would interest me is along with this data, what was the social status of the father? But the data is already in: Women that couple with high status men tend to have boys, women that couple with low status men tend to have girls. (In both cases, by about 10%.)

24

GGBB
GGGG
GGG
GGG

That’s all I can think of off the top of my head. (Also, I think this sampling procedure is skewed toward same-sex families. The GGGG family is one of my grad school friends and her sisters; I know my friend is the oldest, but I’ve only met her siblings on a few occasions and I don’t know in which order they were born, so if one of them had been a boy I would have had to exclude them. Similarly, both of my grandfathers were from large families that included at least three kids of each sex, but I haven’t the foggiest clue in what order they were born, so I left them off – whereas if one of them had been from a family of seven boys, it would have been easy.)

25

Gggg
bbb
bbbg
ggb
ggb
bbb
bgg
ggbbbbb
gbbgbg
bbbg

26

ggggbg
bgbg
bggbgg
bgb
ggbg
bbbgg
bgbbgggbgg
bbbbg

27

Partner: GGB (she’s the second girl)

BBBB
BBB
GGB
BBBGBG (not sure of the order of the last two, but do know there’s “one of each” in that subset of offspring)
BBG
BBGG
BBG
BBGGG (first boy died before I knew the family)

Plus a family of at least four girls and no boys – the father “blamed” his wife, but she pointed out he was the culprit, as she had only X chromosomes to donate.

28

I have 4 kids and they go like this BBGB

I am one of 4 kids too, and we go like this GGGG

My dad is one of 4 kids and they go like this BBBB

29

bbg
ggg
(Damnit, I’m trying to use all caps, but when I hit submit all but the first “B” become lowercase. Never seen that before.)

30

BGB
BBG
BBBBB

I think that’s all I know.

31

Ggggg
gbbb
gggbb
ggg
gbg
ggbb

32

BGBB
GGBB
BGG
BGBGBGBBG
GBGGBGBB
GGBG
BBB
GGGGG (mom’s family)
GGB
GBB

33

Some of these posts look a little like prayers to Dread Cthulhu. Ia! Ia!

34

GGG (Mom’s family)
GGG (My immediate family–siblings and myself)
BBBG

Here’s an interesting one–my sister’s 1st hubby and father of her only child, a son:
BBBBBBBB

Ay yi yi.

35

They should meet the family that lived behind us, when I was a kid:

GGGGGGG.

And some others:

GGBGBBBG
GBGGB
GBG
BGBB
GGG
GGB

36

Well, it looks like BetsQ came up with better data in the original thread, but since I’m here…

Results for third child:
Sample size 166
BBB - 31.3%
BBG - 18.7%
GGG - 28.3%
GGB - 21.7%

Just for kicks, I also looked at what happened with the fourth child if the first three were the same:
Sample size 56
BBBB - 34%
BBBG - 18%
GGGG - 36%
GGGB - 12.5%

So, this poll does seem to be showing an effect … unfortunately for the theory, however, BetsQ’s much MUCH bigger data set in the other thread, doesn’t (or at least, it’s very very mild). What Fretful Porcupine said is probably true - people are throwing out valid data sets like BBGB or GGB if they can’t remember what order they go in.

When I was looking round the web to see if there was any data on this there were people throwing round (unsupported) numbers like “70% chance of another boy if you have two already” … those sort of numbers definitely do seem to be disproved, anyway. (Though maybe statements like that have value in another way - as preventing people from “trying for a boy/girl” too hard)

Thanks for playing, guys.