CMGPD-LN Substantive Lecture
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CMGPD-LN Substantive Lecture Day 5 Stratification and Inequality
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CMGPD-LN Substantive Lecture. Day 5 Stratification and Inequality. Genealogy and Inequality: Ancestry and Kinship in Demography and Stratification. How did kin groups contribute to inequality by shaping individual economic, social, and demographic outcomes in the past? - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
Transcript of CMGPD-LN Substantive Lecture
CMGPD-LNSubstantive Lecture
Day 5Stratification and Inequality
Genealogy and Inequality:Ancestry and Kinship in Demography and Stratification
1. How did kin groups contribute to inequality by shaping individual economic, social, and demographic outcomes in the past?
2. Kin groups and inequality over the long term3. Inequality, demography, and population change
Overall goal: use the Chinese experience to critique models of stratification based on Western experience, and develop new ones more relevant for the rest of the world.
Genealogy and InequalityIndividual Outcomes
• Studies of determinants of economic, social, and demographic outcomes focus on the macro or the micro– Macro: Country, region, social class, race,
ethnicity, gender– Micro: Parental and individual characteristics
• Recently, some consideration of neighborhood or community
• Neglect intermediate layers such as kin groups
Genealogy and InequalityIndividual Outcomes
• This approach reflects the influence of Western traditions• Broad categories originally of interest in the Western
context– Race, gender, ethnicity, social class– Neglect of institutional affiliation, bureaucratic categories– Exception: recent work by Wu Xiaogang, Wang Feng, etc.
• Emphasis on the role of the nuclear family– Parent-child correlations in outcomes– Whether in North American tradition focused on status, or
European tradition focused on class– Neglect of potential role for other kin– Neglect of kin groups as units of organization
Genealogy and InequalityIndividual Outcomes
• For China, and the rest of the world, other units of organization are relevant– Kin groups, variously defined– Bureaucratic categories– Institutional affiliation
• Opportunity to use the Chinese case to develop new models for study of global phenomenon– Models developed should be relevant for other
Asian, Middle Eastern, African Societies
Genealogy and InequalityIndividual Outcomes
Individual outcomesEducationOccupation/IncomeMarriage and ReproductionHealth and Mortality
Macro-level contextEthnicity/race/genderContinent/country/region
Micro-level contextParental characteristicsIndividual characteristics
Meso-level contextCommunity/neighborhoodKin group
Community
Descent Group
Household Group
Household
Household
Household GroupHousehold
Household
Household
Descent Group
Household Group
Household Group
Household Group
Household
Household
Household
Household
Household
Household
Household
Household
Household
Genealogy and InequalityIndividual Outcomes
• Goals– Measure the influence of characteristics of near and
distant kin on individual demographic, social, and economic outcomes
– Assess the relative importance of households, villages and descent groups in shaping outcomes
• Methods– Quantitative methods– 18th and 19th century household register data (CMGPD-LN)
Genealogy and InequalityKin groups over the long term
• Are some kin groups persistently more successful over the very long term?– Lineages, descent groups, etc.
• Western models of inter-generational stratification focus on parents and children– Markovian: grandparents and other kin don’t have
independent effects– Precludes possibility of multi-generation persistence of
kin group status– No role for lineages, descent groups, etc.
Genealogy and InequalityKin groups over the long term
Genealogy and InequalityKin groups over the long term
• Goals– Assess whether the relative status of kin groups persists
over long periods of time– Net of parent-child transmission processes
• Methods– Quantitative methods– 18th and 19th century household register data (CMGPD-LN)– 20th century retrospective survey data– Correlate statuses of lineages in 18th and 19th centuries
with their status in the 19th century
Inequality, demography, and population change
• Does the intergenerational transmission of status interact with demographic differentials to change population composition over the long term?
• In other words, do the descendants of a selective subset of the population account for a disproportionate share of the population in later generations?
• A possible mechanism for social and economic change
Inequality, demography, and population change
• If…– High-status males reproduce more– Traits, behaviors, attitudes conducive to
attainment are transmitted from parent to child• Then…– Intergenerational transmission of traits, combined
with fertility differentials, may have been a mechanism for population change
– Whether transmission is by genes or environment doesn’t matter
Inequality, demography, and population change
• Gregory Clark (2007) included evidence from a multi-generational approach– Indirect evidence from changes in the frequency
of rare surnames• Reproductive success of founders measured
generations later• Net of whatever processes are neglected in
simulation/projection studies
Inequality, demography, and population change
• Clark (2007) suggested that differentials in reproduction and transmission of traits diffused skills and attitudes compatible with a market economy.
• Suggested that such processes were unique to England, and helped account for the Industrial Revolution
• We argue that such processes were also evident in preindustrial China
Inequality, demography, and population change
• Inequality– Differences in outcomes between kin groups in
random-effects models• Demography– Male reproductive success over the long-term, by
SES• Assumption: micro-level results on male
reproductive success ‘scale up’
Inequality, demography, and population change
• Differentials in demographic behavior are well-documented– Marriage, fertility, mortality– Historical and contemporary– Europe, North America, Asia
• Implications for population composition depend on...– Net effects of demographic differentials– Processes of intergenerational transmission
• Patterns of differentials and processes of transmission need to be considered jointly
Inequality, demography, and population change
• Early studies inferred ‘dysgenic’ trends in population from fertility differentials
• Fertility is just part of the equation• Other pieces of the process…– Marriage, Mortality– Status transmission
• Micro-level feedbacks, interactions, correlations between demographic behaviors and status transmission
Inequality, demography, and population change
• Mostly use some form of simulation/projection– Preston and Campbell (1993)– Robert Mare and collaborators– David Lam
• Extrapolate from fertility/mortality and integenerational transmission to population change
• Strong assumptions about independence of demographic outcomes• Markovian
– Based on two-generation parent-child data– No ‘memory’
• Ignore larger units of organization community or lineage that may have generated correlations
Campbell, Cameron and James Lee. 2003. "Social mobility from a kinship perspective: Rural Liaoning, 1789-1909." International Review of Social History. 47:1-26.
