Does the arrival of a son in a family gives more pleasure to a father?  

I really think it depends on the family.

My grandmother preferred boys. My brother got hugs and kisses, and would say to me why are you near me.

My husband side prefers girls. They get a lot of my mother in-laws attention. She buys for the girls and not the boys.

Now I have grandchildren and i try so hard not to show any differences in love and attention.

Well my husband wanted a girl I had a boy we were both disappointed. My husband's family have had only boys for 2 or 3 generations now a girl would have been welcomed by all. Of course the boy was welcome too but we all would have liked a girl - we even had a girl's name chosen in advance of the birth my son's name was settled after he was born.

Based on my experiences, fathers want a baby boy because they want their son to be like them, especially when its their first baby. They want their eldest to be a male so that he would take care of his sister / brother when parents are not around.

In my country, if the child is the first child the couple, almost all the fathers would like it to be a male. For the traditional concept here, only the boy could be taken as the one to pass the generation on. So all the family member would be very happy to get a son. As for second child, maybe boy or girl are just the same to the fathers.