Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-lrblm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-10T07:48:35.275Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A CULTURE OF KINSHIP: CHINESE GENEALOGIES AS A SOURCE FOR RESEARCH IN DEMOGRAPHIC ECONOMICS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 November 2016

Carol H. Shiue
Carol H. Shiue*
Affiliation:
University of Colorado, NBER, and CEPR
*
Address correspondence to: Carol H. Shiue, University of Colorado, NBER, and CEPR, Boulder, Colorado, USA; e-mail: [email protected]
Get access

Abstract:

This paper discusses the use of Chinese genealogies for research on economic demography. I focus both on what is known about the genealogy as a data source, and what are the open questions for future research. Chinese genealogies contain records at the individual level. With the publication of new catalogs and efforts to collect genealogies, the number of genealogies is even larger than previously thought, with most dating to the late Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1644–1911) Dynasties. These records contain a rich source of information about the Chinese population history, over a period for which there is no alternative source of information. Yet, the source still remains largely unexploited. Although the work of transcribing the data is significant, and selection biases need to be carefully considered, preliminary analysis of the data for a sample of married men for Tongcheng County in Anhui Province suggests these data are a rich source of information for demographic and economics research.

Keywords

Genealogical dataChinese historical demographylineage populationintergenerational linked data
Type
Data Section
Information
Journal of Demographic Economics , Volume 82 , Issue 4 , December 2016 , pp. 459 - 482
Copyright
Copyright © Université catholique de Louvain 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Beattie, Hilary J. (1979) Land and Lineage in China A Study of T'ung-Ch'eng County, Anhwel, in the Ming and Ch'ing Dynasties. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Becker, Garry S. and Tomes, Nigel (1979) An equilibrium theory of the distribution of income and intergenerational mobility. Journal of Political Economy 87 (6), 1153–1189.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Behrman, Jere and Tarbman, Paul (1985) Intergenerational earnings mobility in the United States: Some estimates and a test of Becker's intergenerational endowments model. The Review of Economics and Statistics 67 (1), 144–151.Google Scholar
Björklund, Anders and Jäntti, Markus (2009) Intergenerational income mobility and the role of family background. In Salverda, W., Nolan, B. and Time Smeeding (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Economic Inequality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Black, Sandra and Devereux, Paul (2010) Recent developments in intergenerational mobility. In Ashenfelter, O. and Card, D. (eds.), Handbook of Labor Economics, Vol. 4B, pp. 1487–1541. Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Butner, M., Keller, Wolfgang and Shiue, Carol H. (2016) Location and lineage in human capital acquisition. Poster presented at the Economic History Association Conference.Google Scholar
Campbell, Cameron and Lee, James Z. (2011) Kinship and the long-term persistence of inequality in liaoning, China, 1749-2005. Chinese Sociological Review 44 (1), 71–103.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Campbell, Cameron and Lee, James Z. (2002) State views and local views of population: Linking and comparing genealogies and household registers in Liaoning, 1749-1909. History and Computing 14 (1+2), 9–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, Greg and Cummins, Neil (2014) Intergenerational mobility in England, 1858-2012: Surnames and social mobility. Economic Journal 125 (582).Google Scholar
Cohen, Myron L. (1990) Lineage organization in North China. Journal of Asian Studies 49 (3), 509–534.Google Scholar
Dong, Hao, Campbell, Cameron, Kurosu, Satomi, Yang, Wenshen and Lee, James Z. (2015) New sources for comparative social science: Historical population panel data from East Asia. Demography 52 (3), 1061–1088.Google Scholar
Eberhard, Wolfram (1969) Chinese genealogies as a source for the study of the chinese society. World Conference on Records and Genealogical Seminar, Salt Lake City, Utah.Google Scholar
Ebrey, Patricia (1983) Types of lineages in Ch'ing China: A re-examination of the changs of T'ung-ch'eng. Ch'ing shih wen-t'i 4, 1–20.Google Scholar
Ebrey, Patricia and Watson, James L. (eds.) (1986) Kinship Organization in Late Imperial China, 1000-1940. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Elman, Benjamin (2000) A Cultural History of Civil Service Examinations in Late Imperial China. Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Faure, David (1989) The lineage as a cultural invention: The case of the pearl river delta. Modern China 15 (1), 4–36.Google Scholar
Faure, David (2007) Emperor and Ancestor. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Feigenbaum, James J. (2015) Intergenerational Mobility During the Great Depression. Unpublished working paper.Google Scholar
Ferrie, Joseph (1996) A new sample of males linked from the public use micro sample of the 1850 U.S. federal census of population to the 1860 U.S. Federal census of manuscript schedules. Historical Methods 29 (Fall), 141–156.Google Scholar
Freedman, Maurice (1966) Chinese Lineage and Society: Fukien and Kwangtung. New York: Humanities Press.Google Scholar
Fu, P.-j. (2003) Religions. In Cua, A. S. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Chinese Philosophy, pp. 638–642. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Galor, Oded and Klemp, Marc (2014) The Biocultural Origins of Human Capital Formation. NBER working paper 20474. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.Google Scholar
Greif, Avner (2006) Family structure, institutions, and growth: The origins and implications of western corporations. American Economic Review P&P 96 (2), 308–312.Google Scholar
Greif, Avner and Tabellini, Guido (2015) The Clan and the City: Sustaining Cooperation in China and Europe. No. 445, Working Papers from IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.Google Scholar
Harrell, Stevan (1985) The rich get children: Segmentation, stratification, and population in three Chekiang lineages. In Hanley, S. and Wolf, A. (eds.), Family and Population in East Asian History, pp. 81–109. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Harrell, Stevan (ed.) (1995) Chinese Historical Microdemography. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Harrell, Stevan (1987) On the holes in Chinese genealogies. Late Imperial China 8 (2), 53–79.Google Scholar
Hauser, Robert M. and Warren, John Robert (1997) Socioeconomic indexes for occupations: A review, update, and critique. Sociological Methodology 27 (1), 177–298.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hauser, Robert M., Warren, John Robert, Huang, M.-H., and Carter, W. Y. (2000) Occupational status, education, and social mobility in the meritocracy. In Arrow, K. and Bowles, S. (eds.), Meritocracy and Economic Inequality, pp. 179–239. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Ho, Ping-ti (1959) Studies on the Population of China, 1368-1952. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Ho, Ping-ti (1962) The ladder of success in Imperial China: aspects of social mobility, 1368-1911. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Jäntti, Markus, Bratsberg, B., Røed, Knut, Raaum, Oddbjørn, Naylor, Robin, Österbacka, Eva, Björklund, Anders, and Eriksson, Tor (2006) American Exceptionalism in a New Light: A Comparison of Intergenerational Earnings Mobility in the Nordic Countries, the United Kingdom and the United States. IZA Discussion Paper no. 1938. Bonn, Germany: Institute for the Study of Labor. See: http://www.iza.org/en/webcontent/publications/index.Google Scholar
Keller, Wolfgang, Li, Ben and Shiue, Carol H. (2013) Shanghai's trade, China's growth: Continuity, recovery, and change since the opium war. International Monetary Fund Economic Review 61 336–378.Google Scholar
Keller, Wolfgang, Santiago, Javier A. and Shiue, Carol H. (2016) Trade in China During the Treaty Port Era.Google Scholar
Kurz, Johannes (2014) On the southern tang imperial genealogy. Journal of the American Oriental Society 133 (4), 601–621.Google Scholar
Lakos, William (2010) Chinese Ancestor Worship: A Practice and Ritual Oriented Approach to Understanding Chinese Culture. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Google Scholar
Lee, James, Campbell, Cameron and Feng, Wang (1993) An introduction to the demography of the Qing imperial lineage, 1644-1911. Schofield, Roger and Reher, David (eds.), Old and New Methods in Historical Demography, pp. 361–382. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Li, Bozhong (2000) Jiangnan de Zaoqi Gongyehua, 1550-1850 [Early Industrialization in the Yangzi Delta, 1550-1850]. Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe.Google Scholar
Li, Liu (1999) Who were the ancestors? The origins of Chinese ancestral cult and racial myths. Antiquity 73 (281), 602–606.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lindahl, Mikhael, Palme, Mårten, Massih, Sofia Sandgren and Sjögren, Anna (2012) The Intergenerational Persistence of Human Capital: An Empirical Analysis of Four Generations. IZA Discussion Paper No. 6463. Bonn, Germany: Institute for the Study of Labor. See: http://www.iza.org/en/webcontent/publications/index.Google Scholar
Liu, Hui-chen Wang (1959) The Traditional Chinese Clan Rules. Locust Valley, NY: J.J. Augustin.Google Scholar
Liu, Ts'ui-jung (1978) Chinese genealogies as a source for the study of historical demography. In Studies and Essays in Commemoration of the Golden Jubilee of Academia Sinica []. Vol. II: social sciences and humanities. Taipei: Academia Sinica. http://www.worldcat.org/title/zhong-yang-yan-jiu-yuan-cheng-li-wu-shi-zhou-nian-ji-nian-lun-wen-ji-di-er-ji-ren-wen-she-hui-ke-xue-studies-and-essays-in-commemoration-of-the-golden-jubilee-of-academia-sinica-vol-ii-social-sciences-and-humanities/oclc/213371224&referer=brief_results.Google Scholar
Liu, Ts'ui-jung (1995) Demographic constraint and family structure in traditional Chinese lineages, ca. 1200-1900. In Harrell, S. (ed.), Chinese Historical Microdemography, pp. 849–870. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Lo, Hsiang-lin (1969) Scholastic Application of the Chinese Clan Genealogies: History and Arrangement of Chinese Genealogies. Salt Lake City, Utah: Genealogical Society of Utah.Google Scholar
Long, Jason and Ferrie, Joseph (2012) Grandfathers Matter(ed): Occupational Mobility Across Three Generations in the U.S. and Britain, 1850–1910. mimeo, Northwestern University.Google Scholar
Martin, Thomas R. (2010) Herodotus and Sima Qian: The First Great Historians of Greece and China, a Brief History with Documents. Boston: Bedford.Google Scholar
Olivetti, Claudia and Paserman, M. Daniele (2015) In the name of the son (and the daughter): Intergenerational mobility in the United States, 1850–1940. American Economic Review 105 (8), 2695–2724.Google Scholar
Pomeranz, Kenneth (2000) The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ruggles, Stevan (2006) Linking historical censuses: A new approach. History and Computing 14, 213–224.Google Scholar
Ruggles, Stevan (2014) Big microdata for population research. Demography 51, 287–297.Google Scholar
Ruggles, Stevan, McCaa, Robert, Sobek, Matthew, and Cleveland, Lara (2015) The IPUMS collaboration: Integrating and disseminating the world's population microdata. Journal of Demographic Economics 81, 203–216.Google Scholar
Shiue, Carol H. (2013) Human Capital and Fertility in Chinese Clans Before Modern Growth. NBER working paper 19661. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.Google Scholar
Shiue, Carol H. (2016) Social Mobility in the Long-Run: An Analysis with Five Linked Generations. mimeo. Paper presented at the Cliometrics Conference, Pittsburgh, PA.Google Scholar
Solon, Gary (1999) Intergenerational mobility in the labor market. Chapter 29. In Ashenfelter, O. C. and Card, D. (eds.), Handbook of Labor Economics, vol. 3A, pp. 1761–1800. Amsterdam, North-Holland.Google Scholar
Solon, Gary (2002) Cross-Country Differences in Intergenerational Earnings Mobility. The Journal of Economic Perspectives 16 (3), 59–66.Google Scholar
Solon, Gary (2015) What do we know so far about multigenerational mobility? NBER working paper 21053.Google Scholar
Telford, Ted A. (1986) A survey of social demographic data in Chinese genealogies. Late Imperial China 7, 118–148.Google Scholar
Telford, Ted A. (1990) Patching the holes in Chinese genealogies. Late Imperial China 11 (2), 116–135.Google Scholar
Telford, Ted A. (1995) Fertility and population growth in the lineages of tongcheng county, 1520–1661. Harrell, S. (ed.), Chinese Historical Microdemography, pp. 48–93. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Thatcher, Melvin (2004) Kinship and Government in Chu During the Spring and Autumn era, 722-453 B.C. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Washington.Google Scholar
Wang, Feng (2000) Censuses of 1982 and 1990. In Hall, P. K., McCaa, R. and Thorvaldsen, G. (eds.), Handbook of International Historical Microdata for Population Research, pp. 45–60. Minneapolis: Minnesota Population Center.Google Scholar
Wang, H. ed. (2008) Zhongguo jiapu zongmu [Comprehensive catalogue of Chinese genealogies]. Shanghai: Shanghai gu ji chu ban she.Google Scholar
Watson, James L. (1982) Chinese kinship reconsidered: Anthropological perspectives on historical research. China Quarterly 92, 589–622.Google Scholar
Yang, Ch'ing-k'un (1959a) A Chinese Village in Early Communist Transition. Cambridge, MA: Technology Press, MIT.Google Scholar
Yang, Ch'ing-k'un (1959b) The Chinese Family in the Communist Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Technology Press, MIT.Google Scholar
Yuan, I-Chin (1931) Life tables for a southern Chinese family from 1365 to 1849. Human Biology 3 (2), 157–179.Google Scholar
Zhao, Zhongwei (1997) Long-term mortality patterns in Chinese history: Evidence from a recorded clan population. Population Studies 51, 2.Google Scholar