The Myth of Chinese Family Size

Hsü, Francis L. K.

doi:10.1086/219243

Cited by 34 publications

(14 citation statements)

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“…By examining the determinants of patrilineage extinction and growth separately, we challenge a common belief that families in historical China (Hsu 1943; Wolf 1995:116–117; 2001) and elsewhere (e.g., Betzig 1986; Turke 1989; see a summary in Table 1 of Hopcroft 2006) always maximized their numbers of male births. Our results show that the social status of male founders had a greater and more enduring effect on the chances of their descent lines becoming extinct than it did on the growth rates of the lines that avoided extinction.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Ancestry Matters

2015

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Patrilineality, the organization of kinship, inheritance, and other key social processes based on patrilineal male descent, has been a salient feature of social organization in China and many other societies for centuries. Because continuity or growth of the patrilineage was the central focus of reproductive strategies in such societies, we introduce the number of patrilineal male descendants generations later as a stratification outcome. By reconstructing and analyzing 20,000 patrilineages in two prospective, multi-generational population databases from 18th and 19th century China, we show that patrilineages founded by high status males had higher growth rates for the next 150 years. The elevated growth rate of these patrilineages was due more to their having a lower probability of extinction at each point in time than to surviving patrilineal male descendants having larger numbers of sons on average. As a result, patrilineal male descendants of high status males account for a disproportionately large share of the male population in later generations. In China and elsewhere, patrilineal kin network characteristics influence individuals’ life chances; thus effects of a male founder’s characteristics on patrilineage size many generations later represent an indirect channel of status transmission that has not been considered previously.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Ancestry Matters

2015

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“…It does not take place between sons and father, because in principle the father holds all family property in trust (Shiga 1978;Lavely and Ren 1992;Ma 1999). Previous research has shown that rich families, in order to maintain property status, are less likely than poor families to divide their property (Hsu 1943;Cohen 1976;Ma 1999).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Related to household economy is the concern of rich families to preserve their property, a concern that reduces the likelihood of losing property through family division (Hsu 1943;Cohen 1976). As children's education partly reflects the economic status of the parental family, the fact that uxorilocal marriage in Songzi occurs more often among daughters with higher education suggests that families that can attract a man into their household are likely to have at least some property.…”

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confidence: 99%

Marriage form and family division in three villages in rural China

Feldman

Jin³

2003

Population Studies

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This paper presents a study of the influence of children's marriage form and other characteristics on whether married couples in three villages in rural China establish a family separate from the joint family of their natal kin. The results reveal that, for children with a brother, sons in virilocal marriages are more likely than daughters in uxorilocal marriages to establish a family separate from that of their parents and do so earlier than these daughters. However, among children without a brother, sons and daughters do not differ significantly in whether or when they divide off from their extended family and set up a new family. The majority of family division occurs in the first 5 years after marriage for sons and daughters. Number of siblings and other characteristics also affect the likelihood of family division. We discuss demographic, socioeconomic, and cultural causes underlying this phenomenon as well as its social implications.

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“…Traditionally, China was considered a land of large families [31]; a phenomenon that is now historical. The late 1970s witnessed the implementation of the influential one-child-per-family policy.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cultural differences define diagnosis and genomic medicine practice: implications for undiagnosed diseases program in China

et al. 2013

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Despite the current acceleration and increasing leadership of Chinese genetics research, genetics and its clinical application have largely been imported to China from the Occident. Neither genetics nor the scientific reductionism underpinning its clinical application is integral to the traditional Chinese worldview. Given that disease concepts and their incumbent diagnoses are historically derived and culturally meaningful, we hypothesize that the cultural expectations of genetic diagnoses and medical genetics practice differs between the Occident and China. Specifically, we suggest that an undiagnosed diseases program in China will differ from the recently established Undiagnosed Diseases Program at the United States National Institutes of Health; a culturally sensitive concept will integrate traditional Chinese understanding of disease with the scientific reductionism of Occidental medicine.

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The Myth of Chinese Family Size

Cited by 34 publications

References 0 publications

Ancestry Matters

Ancestry Matters

Marriage form and family division in three villages in rural China

Cultural differences define diagnosis and genomic medicine practice: implications for undiagnosed diseases program in China

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