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Boy or girl. Does it really matter?

According to a new Gallup poll, it does. If they could only have one child, Americans would rather have a boy.

The poll of 1,020 men and women over the age of 18 found that 40 percent preferred a boy to the 28 percent who said a girl, with the rest having no opinion on the matter. The study found that men drive the desire to have boys, with 49 percent preferring male babies, whereas the percent of women preferring boys nearly equaled the percent wanting girls.

Preferences also have something to do with age. For the 30 and under crowd, a whopping 54 percent would rather have a boy, while only 27 percent wanted a girl. Past 50, the percent preferring girls goes up to 29, and preference for boys decreases to 31 percent. 32 percent of women over 50 actually preferred a girl, compared to the 25 percent of the same demographic who said they would rather have a boy.

And if you want to get political about it, the preference for a boy is higher among Republicans than Democrats, which makes sense in light of the gender divide in politics: As Gallup notes, American men are more likely to be Republican, and women are more likely to be Democrats.

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