In 2007 Rwanda launched a campaign to promote 3 children families and a program of community based health services to improve reproductive health. This paper argues that mixed gender offspring is still an important insurance for old age in Rwanda and that to arrive at the desired gender composition women might have to progress beyond parity 3. The analyses are twofold. The first is the parity progression desire given the gender of living children. The second is gender specific replacement intention following the loss of the last or only son or daughter. Using the Demographic and Health Surveys of 2000, 2005, and 2010, we show that child mortality does not lead to extra parity progression beyond three, while having single gender offspring does and even more so when this is the result of the loss of the last son or daughter. 1. Introduction In 2007, the Government of Rwanda started a discussion about the introduction of legislation that should regulate family size to a maximum of three children. The debate has continued ever since. The government emphasizes that, given Rwanda’s very high population density and its agricultural based economy, the poverty reduction strategies are hampered by the current high population growth of nearly 3% per year [1]. While the government is still working on the legislation, policies were already introduced to encourage fertility decline through sensitization campaigns in the media and through dialogues at community level. The latter played a crucial role in implementing the integrated Population Health and Environment Policy. The dialogues on program objectives and community needs took place in traditional forums that have been (re)invoked after the genocide, more specifically during the umuganda (community service), the ubudehe (participatory planning meetings), and the urugwiro (national dialogue sessions) [2]. The policies do not include specific goals with respect to preferences for sons or daughters, but strongly promote gender equity in every life domain, including education and political participation. Gender equality is a constitutional right [3] and is enforced in many laws [4–7]. Besides the sensitizing campaigns, community based health care services, including contraceptive provision, have been implemented to improve the reproductive health status of the population in every part of the country [8]. As a result Rwanda is making a substantial progress in reaching its Millennium Development Goals [9]. The recently released Demographic and Health Survey results (RDHS 2010) [10] show that the aim to reduce the
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