In the Name of the Mother: Measuring the Cultural Value of Family Continuity in China

We explore the importance attached to the family name when couples can decide whether children will have the surname of the mother, uxorilocal marriages, or of the father, virilocal marriages. Using the 2005 China Inter-census Population Survey, we match the surnames of parents with those of their children and estimate the marriage surplus, the gains in being married rather than single. We find that uxorilocal marriages generate more gains for a brotherless wife, reflecting the value of continuing her family line: her incremental surplus is 44 percent as large as the average marriage surplus. That value is higher in provinces where family continuity is deemed to be more important. It appears that the social norms valuing family continuity along with the attachment of the naming right to males in a patrilineal system may help to explain the persistence of son preference in China.