Social Science Seminar - Tradition Revived: How Control Over Means of Production Increased Son Preference in China’s Post-socialist Transition
10:30am - 12:00pm
Online Via Zoom

Previous research has documented that gender equality in many dimensions has deteriorated in former socialist countries. This study employs Engels’ private property-monogamy thesis and discussions in the market transition debate to examine the impact of economic privatization on patrilineal practices in China’s post-socialist transition. I argue that private control over means of production gave rise to inheritance issues that were inconceivable in the socialist era and triggered an incentive for people to keep wealth, especially means of production, within the family. In China, surnames are largely passed down through male lines and marriages are mostly patrilocal. Consequently, the regained desire to practice patrilineal inheritance would inevitably result in parents’ fertility preference for sons over daughters. Using a nationally representative longitudinal dataset and exploiting variation in the timing of the change in the control over means of production, I show that private control over means of production increases the probability of having male offspring. Further analysis suggests that while male private sector employers fulfill their desire for an heir by having more births, farmers who have obtained lands due to decollectivization not only have more children but also practice sex-selective abortions. My findings explain why the sex ratio at birth has become increasingly skewed in post-socialist China. They also imply an unintended consequence of China’s economic reform — a revival of patrilineal lineage and son preference.

When
Where
Online Via Zoom
Language
English
More Information

Dr. Fangqi Wen is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Political and Social Change (PSC) at the Australian National University. Previously, she was a Postdoctoral Prize Research Fellow in Sociology at the ​Nuffield College, the University of Oxford. She received her PhD in Sociology from New York University and her MPhil in Social Science from HKUST. Dr Wen’s research interests center on contemporary and historical demography and inequality, and objective as well as perceived social mobility. She also studies statistical methods of causal inference for demographic outcomes and historical census record linking methods. Her previous work has appeared in DemographySocial Science Research, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and has been featured in media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal. She is the recipient of the Kerckhoff Award from the International Sociological Association Research Committee on Stratification and Mobility (RC28), and the Nan Lin Graduate Student Paper Award from the International Chinese Sociological Association. 


Remarks

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Speakers / Performers:
Prof Fangqi WEN
Assistant Professor, Department of Political and Social Change, Australian National University
Organizer
Division of Social Science
RSS