This project, a five year CAREER grant, involves the training, research and educational activities of a junior PI from the University of Illinois. Dr. Shih will receive training an anthropological demography at the University of California, Berkeley, as well as in mathematics and statistics at UIUC, and will then undertake a research project on the Moso, a duolocal matrilineal group in southwest China. The Moso are demographically interesting because the live in matrilineal households that do not contain any conjugal subunits. The Moso have maintained extremely low fertility rates, appearing to contradict the demographic transition theory that contends that "traditional" populations experience high fertility, which then declines with modernization. The research will serve as a test of that theory and will involve a comparative study of family systems and their demographic implications of the Moso as well as three other (culturally different) ethnic groups that live in the Moso area. During the research component, Dr. Shih will train both undergraduate and graduate students in anthropological and demographic methods.
