Girls... don't want you to have fun: daughters & risk taking

Understanding risky behaviour in health and other domains is an important topic and researchers in Geary are active in looking at this. The paper below has a novel take on this:

The Effects of Daughters on Health Choices and Risk Behaviour
N Powdthavee, S Wu, A Oswald
Little is known about why some human beings make risky life-choices. This paper provides evidence that people's health decisions and addictive actions are influenced by the gender of their children. Having a daughter leads individuals -- in micro data from Great Britain and the United States -- to reduce their smoking, drinking, and drug-taking. The paper's results are consistent with the hypothesis that human beings 'self-medicate' when under stress.
http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:yor:yorken:10/03&r=cbe