Dr. Melissa Brown (Minnesota Population Center at the University of Minnesota) will undertake research on how the relationship between kinship and women's labor at the household level affects the macro economy. Previous social science research has focused on the economic value of women's work overall rather than the how that value is produced through kinship and household management. By attending to household-level labor relations, organized through kinship, and how they interact with the larger economy and change over time, Brown will be able to elucidate a previously hidden dimension of past and present economic development, which can then be used to foster economic development and to make it more egalitarian.
Because a wealth of detailed historical economic and social data are available for China, the researcher will undertake a cross-provincial comparison over the past four centuries. Previous analyses of the Chinese economy, including China's global rise, have ignored kinship and gender despite their importance in wages, household contributions, property ownership, and inheritance. Focusing on China allows consideration of the interaction of kin-based management of women's labor and earnings under four distinct sets of historical conditions: involution in premodern China, industrialism and later Maoism in 20th-century China, and global capitalism today. By comparing outcomes, Brown can examine the relative autonomy of the family and kin group from external forces; the effects of social formations (the array of political and legal arrangements that accompany these states) on kinship; and different economic behaviors and outcomes associated with the different periods. Findings from this research will contribute to developing inter-scalar social science theory of economic history. The research also will be useful to agencies charged with promoting economic development and women's empowerment. The project will asssit in the training of students.
