IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-19-00592.html

Living with the In-laws in China: Which Way is the Spousal Transfer?

Author

Listed:
  • Wei Yang

    (University of North Dakota)

  • Michael Veall

    (McMaster University)

Abstract

Chinese couples sometimes live with the husband's parents (virilocal marriages) or the wife's parents (uxorilocal marriages). Among possible losses and gains, the moving spouse may work for her/his spouse's family and receive food and living space. We argue that the likely predominant direction of the net transfer may be ascertained from the relative perceived “quality†(e.g. youth, education) of the marriage partners. Probit analysis on 2005 Chinese data suggests that living with the in-laws is associated with “moving up†in partner quality. Hence, conditional on partner quality, living with the in-laws as opposed to living separately from parents would likely require an offsetting transfer to the moving spouse. The increasing shortage of women marriage partners (due to son preference and sex-selective abortion) may therefore tend to increase living with the wife's family and reduce living with the husband's family. Policies which normalize these changes in living arrangements might slightly reduce son preference.

Suggested Citation

  • Wei Yang & Michael Veall, 2020. "Living with the In-laws in China: Which Way is the Spousal Transfer?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 40(4), pages 3147-3152.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-19-00592
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2020/Volume40/EB-20-V40-I4-P275.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Xing Li & M. W. Luke Chan & Byron G. Spencer & Wei Yang, 2016. "Does the marriage market sex ratio affect parental sex selection? Evidence from the Chinese census," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 29(4), pages 1063-1082, October.
    2. Weiguang Liu, 2019. "Education arms race, fertility rate and education inflation," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 39(2), pages 937-946.
    3. Douglas Almond & Hongbin Li & Shuang Zhang, 2019. "Land Reform and Sex Selection in China," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(2), pages 560-585.
    4. Junchao Zhang & Shiying Zhang, 2015. "Identifying the Causal Effect of Marriage on Women's Labor Force Participation in the Presence of Chinese Superstition," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 35(2), pages 986-997.
    5. Eugene Choo & Aloysius Siow, 2006. "Who Marries Whom and Why," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(1), pages 175-201, February.
    6. Avraham Ebenstein, 2010. "The "Missing Girls" of China and the Unintended Consequences of the One Child Policy," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 45(1).
    7. V. Bhaskar, 2011. "Sex Selection and Gender Balance," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(1), pages 214-244, February.
    8. Lena Edlund, 2006. "Marriage: Past, Present, Future?," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 52(4), pages 621-639, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bao, Xiaojia & Galiani, Sebastian & Li, Kai & Long, Cheryl Xiaoning, 2023. "Where have all the children gone? An empirical study of child abandonment and abduction in China," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 208(C), pages 95-119.
    2. Bhaskar, Venkataraman, 2015. "The Demographic Transition and the Position of Women: A Marriage Market Perspective," CEPR Discussion Papers 10619, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Doepke, M. & Tertilt, M., 2016. "Families in Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1789-1891, Elsevier.
    4. Samuel Marden, 2016. "Family Size and the Demand for Sex Selection: Evidence From China," Working Paper Series 9016, Department of Economics, University of Sussex.
    5. Li, Yanjun & Bai, Yu & Nakabayashi, Masaki, 2025. "Land reform and illegal adoption of children," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 182-208.
    6. Nahid Tavassoli, 2021. "The Gender-Biased Fertility Behavior: Evidence from Southeast Asian Countries," Economic Alternatives, University of National and World Economy, Sofia, Bulgaria, issue 2, pages 235-261, July.
    7. Bhalotra, Sonia & Clots-Figueras, Irma & Iyer, Lakshmi, 2021. "Religion and abortion: The role of politician identity," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    8. Anderson, Gordon & Leo, Teng Wah, 2013. "An empirical examination of matching theories: The one child policy, partner choice and matching intensity in urban China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 468-489.
    9. Yao, Yuxin, 2017. "Essays on economics of language and family economics," Other publications TiSEM 0093bc8e-e869-4f87-8ff8-8, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    10. Kim, Jun Hyung & Wang, Shaoda, 2021. "Birth Order Effects, Parenting Style, and Son Preference," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1007, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    11. Duan, Huiqiong & Yuan, Weici & Snyder, Thomas, 2025. "Gender imbalance and temporary migration: Evidence from rural China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    12. Lu, Di, 2018. "China’s Selective Two-Child Policy and Its Impact on the Marriage Market," VfS Annual Conference 2018 (Freiburg, Breisgau): Digital Economy 181586, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    13. Yangyang ZHANG & Shiko MARUYAMA, 2025. "The Dual Burdens of Disability and Gender Norms: Understanding disabled women’s fertility in developing countries," Discussion papers 25060, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    14. Sayli Javadekar & Kritika Saxena, 2025. "The seen and unseen: the unintended impact of a conditional cash transfer program on prenatal sex selection," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 38(1), pages 1-34, March.
    15. Anukriti, S & Bhalotra, Sonia R. & Tam, Hiu, 2016. "On the Quantity and Quality of Girls: New Evidence on Abortion, Fertility, and Parental Investments," IZA Discussion Papers 10271, IZA Network @ LISER.
    16. Xu, Bing & Pak, Maxwell, 2015. "Gender ratio under China's two-child policy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 289-307.
    17. S. Anukriti, 2013. "The Fertility-Sex Ratio Tradeoff: Unintended Consequences of Financial Incentives," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 827, Boston College Department of Economics.
    18. Fan Qin & Yinhe Liang, 2025. "Children’s access to public education and maternal employment: evidence from China," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 38(4), pages 1-35, December.
    19. Chae, Minhee & Hatton, Timothy J. & Meng, Xin, 2023. "Explaining trends in adult height in China: 1950 to 1990," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    20. Du, Julan & Wang, Yongqin & Zhang, Yan, 2015. "Sex imbalance, marital matching and intra-household bargaining: Evidence from China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 197-218.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
    • D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-19-00592. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.