Not women, very much, it seems. A new paper by Laura Zimmermann from University of Michigan, using data from India.

It is well-documented that in a number of countries unnaturally few girls are born relative to boys. Explanations have focused on a range of potential reasons, including economic and cultural benefits from having a son. Households are usually treated as monolithic entities, however, and the motivations of particular
household members are understudied. In contrast, this paper looks at a potential benefit mothers derive from giving birth to a boy – an improvement in their position within the household. I analyze this hypothesis using households with young first-borns from a nationally representative Indian dataset. The results
suggest that women do indeed gain in non-monetary terms: Having a boy rather than a girl leads to increased joint household decision-making powers. This effect seems to vanish after six months, however, implying that the female-specific self-interest in practicing son preference may be low.

The draft of the paper is here.