Kinship Structure & Women: - Specialized Research AI at MIT

Kinship Structure & Women:
Evidence from Economics

Sara Lowes

Economists are increasingly interested in understanding how culture shapes out-
comes for women and the origins of these cultural practices. I review recent work
in economics on how culture affects the well-being of women in developing coun-
tries, much of which is motivated by work in anthropology. I present evidence on the
role of kinship structure, particularly matrilineal relative to patrilineal systems, for
shaping women’s preferences, exposure to domestic violence, and the health and ed-
ucation of children. Additionally, I discuss research on the effects of cultural prac-
tices, such as bride-price, and how the organization of production affects gender
norms. Economists, with a careful focus on causal identification, contribute to the
evidence that culture is an important determinant of outcomes for women.

T here has been growing interest in economics in how variation in cultur-

al practices may explain variation in outcomes for women. Economists
have often focused on more standard economic variables, such as policies
that target women’s labor force participation and educational attainment, access
to technologies such as birth control, or divorce laws to explain gender dispari-
ties. Yet even in similar institutional contexts or at similar levels of development,
women experience remarkable variation in their well-being.1 Culture may be an
important factor to explain this variation.2

Defining culture and institutions and delineating the distinction between
them can be fraught. Institutions are frequently defined as external “rules” that
shape individuals’ expected payoffs for different actions. Culture is often defined
as the collection of beliefs and internal views for individuals. These beliefs may
be transmitted across generations or through peer socialization.3 While I focus on
various cultural practices and refer to this as the effect of culture, these practices
may also fall under the realm of institutions in the sense that the practices them-
selves shape the payoffs associated with different behavior.

This essay reviews the recent work in economics on culture and the well-being
of women in the context of developing countries, focusing on the role of kinship
systems. In particular, I review work on how the structure of kinship systems, cul-

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tural practices such as the payment of bride-price and dowry, and the organiza-
tion of production may affect outcomes for women and children.

K inship systems are an important social structure in many societies. They

determine who is considered a group member and what obligations an
individual has to other group members.4 There are various ways of orga-
nizing kinship groups. One key distinction is between matrilineal and patrilin-
eal kinship systems, both of which are examples of unilineal descent systems. In
a unilineal descent system, lineage and inheritance are traced through one of the
two parents. Many Western societies practice cognatic descent, in which kinship
ties are traced through both parents so that an individual considers people related
through their mother and through their father to be kin. In matrilineal descent sys-
tems, lineage and inheritance are traced through female group members, while in
patrilineal descent systems, lineage and inheritance are traced through male group
members.5

Figure 1 illustrates the two different kinship structures. Men are represented as
triangles and women as circles. Figure 1a presents a matrilineal kinship system, in
which individuals related through a common female relative are denoted in black.
Note that husbands and wives have different kinship affiliations and that children
are in the same kin group as their mother. In matrilineal systems, uncles play an
important role, since a child often inherits from his mother’s brother. Figure 1b
presents a patrilineal kinship system, with members of the same patrilineal kin
group denoted in black. When a woman marries, she is effectively subsumed into
the kin group of her husband; this is denoted by the daughter who is married and
is now a light rather than black circle.

A key hypothesis in the work on kinship systems is that the structure of matri-
lineal kinship systems relative to patrilineal kinship systems has implications for
the well-being of women. Kinship structure may affect outcomes for women for
a variety of reasons. First, the practice of matrilineal kinship often corresponds
with other cultural practices that may benefit women. Thus, the effects of matri-
lineal kinship may be more accurately interpreted as the effects of the broader set
of cultural practices that tend to be bundled together. For example, of the eighty
matrilineal societies in Africa in George Peter Murdock’s Ethnographic Atlas,6 65
percent practice matrilocal residence, in which a married couple resides with the
family of the wife, while less than 1 percent of patrilineal societies practice matri-
local residence. Similarly, matrilineal societies traditionally are less likely to have
the custom of bride-price payments: a transfer from the groom’s family to the
bride’s family upon marriage. Second, in some matrilineal societies, women di-
rectly inherit land, rather than just pass land down to men who share a common
female relative. Proximity to family members through matrilocal residence and
increased asset ownership through land inheritance may enable women to bet-

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Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & SciencesKinship Structure & Women: Evidence from Economics

Figure 1
Diagram of Kinship Systems

Legend: = Males, = Females, / = Same Matriliny Legend: = Males, = Females, / = Same Patriliny

(a) Matrilineal Kinship

(b) Patrilineal Kinship

ter implement their preferences. In the language of household bargaining mod-
els, land ownership and living close to relatives may increase women’s bargaining
power by improving their outside options.

The matrilineal bundle is not homogenous and varies greatly even within
Sub-Saharan Africa. In his 1934 book Kinship and Marriage, anthropologist Rob-
in Fox outlines three types of matrilineal kinship systems with different implica-
tions for women’s empowerment.7 The first type of matrilineal society emphasiz-
es the mother-daughter-sister roles and has matrilocal residence. Women control
the continuity of the matrilineage and resources, and therefore they tend to have
relatively higher status. In the second type of matrilineal society, the emphasis is
on the brother-sister-nephew roles. These societies often practice avunculocal resi-
dence, which is residence with the bride’s uncle after marriage. In this case, politi-
cal power is generally retained by men. This results in the relatively lower status of
women. In the final type, all of these relationships are important. Thus, while men
remain in control, the status of women is not as low as in the second type.

O ne approach to studying the effects of matrilineal kinship has been to doc-

ument how preferences vary across matrilineal and patrilineal groups.
Researchers have examined the effects of matrilineal kinship systems for
women’s preferences, including preference for competition, altruism, risk, and
political participation.

It has been widely documented, particularly in Western cultural settings, that
women prefer to compete less than men. If women prefer to compete less than
men, this may have important implications for job market outcomes, promotions,
and performance in school.8 Given that willingness to compete affects key eco-
nomic outcomes, it is necessary to explore how these differences in willingness to
compete arise.

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149 (1) Winter 2020Sara Lowes

To highlight how preference for competition varies across cultural settings, re-
cent scholarship has examined how kinship structure affects women’s preference
for competition. Much of this work was motivated by a paper by Uri Gneezy, Ken-
neth L. Leonard, and John A. List examining preference for competition in the
patrilineal Masai society of Tanzania and the matrilineal and matriarchal Khasi
society of India.9 The authors evaluated preference for competition using a lab
experiment in which individuals chose whether to compete. Broadly, the ben-
efit of lab experiments is that one holds the payoffs associated with various ac-
tions–in other words, the rules of the game–constant. In the patrilineal society
in Tanzania, the authors found the standard gender gap in preference for com-
petition, in which women are significantly less likely to compete.10 This is con-
sistent with work from the United States and Europe.11 However, in the matri-
lineal society in India, they found that the gap in preference for competition is
closed: women were just as likely to compete as men. The authors demonstrate
that women do not always prefer to compete less than men and provide evidence
that culture may shape women’s preference for competition. Their paper also fo-
cuses on a sample of non-Western individuals, which is important given that so-
called WEIRD societies (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic),
on which most research is based, may not be reflective of broader human psychol-
ogy and behavior.12

Subsequent work has focused on the Khasi in India and a neighboring patri-
lineal group in India. Steffen Andersen and colleagues found that the gender gap
in willingness to compete emerges after puberty.13 The benefit of this research de-
sign is that both societies under study are located in India, thus limiting the extent
to which other factors–such as institutional quality, geography, or history–vary.
Related work by Jeffrey Flory and colleagues compares preference for competi-
tion among individuals from matrilocal villages and patrilocal villages in Mala-
wi.14 The results are consistent with the Gneezy paper, in which there is no gen-
der gap in preference for competition among the matrilocal women.15 Additional-
ly, Flory and coauthors found that patrilocal women’s preference for competition
is sensitive to having children: that is, only post-adolescent women without chil-
dren are less competitive than their male counterparts. Finally, Jane Zhang has ex-
amined how kinship structure interacts with institutional changes in China.16 She
found that institutions that encourage women’s participation in the labor force
reduce the gender gap in preference for competition for the patrilineal Han, while
the gender gap in competition persists among a patrilineal ethnic minority group
that was not subjected to these institutions. Her study suggests that institutions
can shape culture.

In my paper “Kinship Structure, Stress, and the Gender Gap in Competition,”
I build on past work by examining preference for competition among individu-
als from the matrilineal belt in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).17 The

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Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & SciencesKinship Structure & Women: Evidence from Economics

matrilineal belt describes the distribution of matrilineal ethnic groups in Central
Africa. This is an ideal setting to study the effects of matrilineal kinship because
there are many matrilineal and patrilineal ethnic groups located in a common set-
ting. Additionally, Central Africa has the highest density of matrilineal kinship
systems in the world.18 Figure 2 shows a map of the matrilineal belt in Sub-Saha-
ran Africa. The matrilineal groups in the study region primarily fall into the sec-
ond group described by Fox, the type of matrilineal kinship in which women are
less empowered relative to the two other types.19

I collected data from 614 individuals in Kananga, Democratic Republic of Con-
go, a major urban area along the matrilineal belt (see Figure 2 for the field site lo-
cation, which is denoted with a shaded circle). To measure preference for com-
petition, individuals completed a version of the standard competition lab experi-
ment developed by Muriel Niederle and Lise Vesterlund.20 Participants complete
three rounds of a matching game on a touch screen tablet.21 In the first round, they
are paid under a piece-rate payment scheme, in which they receive 200 Congo-
lese Francs (CDF) (approximately 20 cents USD) for every time they complete the
matching game. In the second round, they are paid using a tournament scheme,
in which they are randomly matched with another player and whoever has the
highest performance (the most completed matching games) is paid 500 CDF for
each time the task is completed, while the other player receives 0 CDF. Finally, in
the third round, players are given a choice of compensation scheme, in which the
choice of tournament compensation is interpreted as a preference for competi-
tion. For a subset of participants, I also collected physiological data during game
play. Specifically, I measured electrodermal activity (EDA), the skin’s ability to
conduct electricity. Higher skin conductance levels (SCLs) are generally associat-
ed with higher levels of stress. Physiological data provide additional insight into
how players experience competition.

I find several key results. First, in the setting of the DRC with multiple ethnic
groups in a common geographic and institutional setting, I find no evidence that
matrilineal kinship closes the gender gap in competition. Eighty percent of men
and 60 percent of women choose to compete, with no differences across kinship
systems. However, I do find that matrilineal kinship completely closes the gap
in preference for risky gambles, as measured by a series of incentivized gambles
in which one option is riskier than the other.22 This is related to work by Binglin
Gong and Chun-Lei Yang, who found a smaller gender gap in risk preference for
the matrilineal Mosuo relative to the patriarchal Yi in China.23

Finally, I find that while matrilineal kinship does not explain preference for
competition, changes in stress between the piece-rate round and the tournament
round predict willingness to compete in the third round. Women who experi-
enced more stress in the tournament round relative to the piece-rate round were
less likely to choose to compete. Controlling for changes in SCL reduces the gender

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149 (1) Winter 2020Sara Lowes

Figure 2
Ethnic Group Boundaries and Matrilineal Belt

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DRC Border
Kananga
Murdock Boundaries
Other

Patrilineal

Matrilineal

Source: Map created by author using GIS software and matching across the data sources. The
underlying ethnic group boundary data come from George Peter Murdock, Africa: Its Peoples
and Their Culture History (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1959). The information on kinship practice
(coding of matrilineal or patrilineal) comes from George Peter Murdock, Ethnographic Atlas
(Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1967).

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Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & SciencesKinship Structure & Women: Evidence from Economics

gap in preference competition by 25 percent. These results suggest that the phys-
iological experience of competing affects women’s willingness to compete, and
that in this setting with many matrilineal and patrilineal groups, there is no evi-
dence that matrilineal kinship affects preference for competition.

Subsequent work has examined how differences in kinship structure affect a
variety of other preferences and outcomes. For example, in a 2011 paper, Mosche
Hoffman, Uri Gneezy, and John A. List find no differences in spatial ability be-
tween men and women among the matrilineal Khasi in India, whereas they find
that men performed better at a spatial task among the neighboring patrilineal
Karbi.24 In China, Gong, Yang, and Huibin Yan found that women in the Mosuo
ethnic group are less generous relative to men, while there is no difference for the
patriarchal Yi.25

Together, these papers suggest that kinship structure has implications for
women’s preferences, but that it may be important to have many ethnic groups
represented in a sample and to hold constant the institutional and geographic
setting.

I n another paper set in the matrilineal belt, I examine how matrilineal kin-

ship affects spousal cooperation and outcomes for women and children.26
Mid-twentieth-century anthropologists focused on the “matrilineal puzzle”:
if matrilineal kinship systems undermine spousal cooperation, then, from an evo-
lutionary perspective, why would they persevere? In other words, why would a
system that jeopardized an integral unit of cooperation prevail over alternative
kinship structures that produced more cooperation, such as patrilineal kinship?27
Anthropologists pointed to two structural features of matrilineal kinship sys-
tems that may affect spousal cooperation.28 First, matrilineal kinship systems
lead to split allegiances between spouses. Within a couple, each spouse maintains
strong allegiances to their own kinship group, while in patrilineal systems, a wife
is effectively incorporated into the broader kin group of her husband. Second, in
matrilineal systems, men have less authority over their wives. Children are con-
sidered to belong to the kin group of the wife. Thus, if a husband mistreats his
wife, it is relatively easier for her to return to her kin group. In particular, she may
receive support from her brothers, whose inheritance passes to her children rath-
er than to the brothers’ own children. The structure of matrilineal kinship sys-
tems may have important implications for women and children if it affects the
distribution of resources within the household and the support women receive
from their broader kinship network. Note that the way anthropologists conceptu-
alize spousal “cooperation” is not consistent with an understanding of coopera-
tion free from coercion. In particular, the idea that men having less authority over
their wife in matrilineal systems leads to less cooperation suggests that coopera-
tion is better understood as coercion.

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149 (1) Winter 2020Sara Lowes

In “Matrilineal Kinship and Spousal Cooperation: Evidence from the Matrilin-
eal Belt,” I test whether matrilineal kinship systems undermine spousal coopera-
tion using lab-in-the-field experiments and survey data.29 I collected data from 320
couples from the matrilineal belt. Thus, all couples are from a geographically sim-
ilar area, but some are from matrilineal ethnic groups and others from patrilineal
ethnic groups. More than twenty-eight ethnic groups are represented in the sample.
To measure cooperation, individuals in the sample completed a public goods
game with their spouse. The public goods game is meant to capture the daily co-
ordination problem couples often face: for instance, there is a benefit to cooper-
ating with a spouse but also incentives to free-ride off the efforts of a spouse. The
public goods game was structured as follows. First, husbands and wives were in-
terviewed separately by an enumerator of the same sex to ensure privacy and com-
fort. They were next given an endowment of 1000 CDF, or approximately 1 USD.
They then rolled a die with three white sides and three black sides; if they rolled
a black, they received a “bonus” of 500 CDF in addition to the initial endowment.
Significantly, the outcome of the die roll was private information, meaning that
their spouse did not know their endowment size. The respondents were then giv-
en the opportunity to allocate their endowment across two envelopes: a person-
al envelope and a shared envelope. The respondent was told that contributions
made to the shared envelope by both spouses would be combined, increased by
1.5, and then divided evenly between the husband and wife. After the allocation
decisions were made privately in a tent concealed from the view of enumerators,
both envelopes were collected by the enumerator. Payouts were calculated in the
office, and individuals received the sum of money from their personal envelope
and the amount earned in the shared envelope one week later. The respondents
also completed the same game but with a stranger of the opposite sex.

The experimental results suggest that matrilineal individuals are less coopera-
tive with their spouses. Both matrilineal men and women contributed less to the
shared envelope. This was particularly the case when the respondent won the bo-
nus, which was unobservable to the spouse. However, matrilineal individuals no
longer behaved differentially when they won the bonus and were paired with a
stranger of the opposite sex. Thus, their behavior was specific to being paired with
a spouse. These results suggest that matrilineal kinship systems may indeed un-
dermine spousal cooperation.

I also examine the implications of matrilineal kinship for the well-being of
women and children by combining my own survey data with data from the Demo-
graphic and Health Surveys (DHS) for the DRC.30 I first examine whether matrilin-
eal women fare better than patrilineal women in terms of autonomy in decision-
making and beliefs on whether domestic violence is justified. I find that in my own
survey data, matrilineal women have views more consistent with female autonomy,
are less likely to believe domestic violence is justified in a variety of situations, and

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Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & SciencesKinship Structure & Women: Evidence from Economics

report being happier. In the DHS, matrilineal women report greater autonomy in
decision-making, are less supportive of domestic violence, and, crucially, experi-
ence less domestic violence. This is notable given that in the DRC, half of all women
sampled in the DHS reported having experienced some form of physical violence
from a spouse.

I also examine outcomes for children. In both my sample and in the DHS, chil-
dren of matrilineal women are healthier and better educated. Specifically, in my
sample, children of matrilineal women are 8 percentage points less likely to have
been sick in the last month and have 0.4 more years of education. In the DHS,
matrilineal women have 0.12 fewer children who have died, relative to a mean of
0.6, and children of matrilineal women have 0.15 more years of education.31

The paper has several important implications. First, broader social structures
shape dynamics within the household. Economists often just focus on the nucle-
ar household, particularly in their models of household bargaining. These results
suggest that understanding broader social structures such as kinship systems is
key to understanding household outcomes. Second, the result that matrilineal in-
dividuals are less cooperative with their spouses suggests that kinship systems
that empower women need not lead to more cooperative outcomes. Collective
models of the household often predict that greater empowerment is synonymous
with larger contributions to a public good, because ex-post a greater share of the
benefits are captured by women. However, in a setting with the threat of domes-
tic violence, what is observed as greater “cooperation” may actually be a response
to coercion. Finally, the results shed light on the “matrilineal puzzle.” Specifical-
ly, despite that matrilineal kinship systems undermine spousal cooperation, they
seem to have important benefits for women and children.

A final strand of literature on matrilineal kinship examines how matrilin-

eal relative to patrilineal kinship systems affect women’s political engage-
ment and preferences. For example, political scientists Amanda Lea Rob-
inson and Jessica Gottlieb have used data from the Afrobarometer for Sub-Saha-
ran Africa to examine the relationship between matrilineal kinship and women’s
political participation.32 They found that within matrilineal ethnic groups, there
is a smaller gender gap in various measures of women’s participation and engage-
ment in politics relative to men. The authors argue that matrilineal kinship im-
proves outcomes for women through more progressive norms about the appropri-
ate role of women in society. They find that the benefits of matrilineal systems are
conferred in villages where there are a sufficient number of households practicing
matrilineal kinship, and that there are no differential benefits of matrilineal kin-
ship for women who have directly inherited land. The authors interpret this as ev-
idence in favor of the role of norms for conferring the benefits of matrilineal kin-
ship, rather than the role of resource endowments.

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Related work by political scientists Rachel Brulé and Nikhar Gaikwad in In-
dia examines whether women’s political participation and preferences on the size
and scope of the welfare state differ in matrilineal relative to patrilineal societ-
ies.33 The authors motivate the study by showing that there is a large gap in atti-
tudes between men and women in participation and interest in politics, as well as
the extent to which women believe social support is important. The authors find
that in patrilineal societies, where men generally control wealth, men participate
more than women in politics, are less supportive of the welfare state, and prefer
lower levels of taxation. However, in the neighboring matrilineal societies where
women have more control over wealth, the gender gap in political engagement
and preferences over social policy closes.

M atrilineal kinship is a bundled treatment. In fact, it is historically asso-

ciated with many other practices, such as the practice of matrilocal res-
idence after marriage (living with the family of the bride) and dowry
(money and goods transfers from the bride’s family to the groom’s family at the
time of marriage).

Natalie Bau has examined the relationship between the practice of matrilocal-
ity and investment in the human capital of children.34 Co-residence with adult
children is a form of old-age insurance in many societies. Thus, parents may have
additional incentive to invest in children if they expect these children to care for
them in the future. In her paper, Bau uses data from Ghana and Indonesia, where
there is variation in cultural practices. She finds that in Indonesia, there is great-
er investment in female siblings relative to male siblings in matrilocal groups.
In Ghana, membership in a group that practices patrilocality is associated with
greater investment in male siblings. She then examines responses to changes in
formal policies that provide old-age insurance in the form of pension plans. These
formal policies that provide insurance may change the incentives to invest in the
children that formally provided old-age support for parents. Greater exposure to a
pension program in Indonesia reduces the relative investment in daughters. Like-
wise, there is a decrease in the investment in the education of male children in
patrilocal societies in Ghana. Bau’s results provide evidence that cultural practic-
es respond to the institutional and policy environment.

Historically, matrilineal groups were much less likely to pay bride-price. In fact,
matrilineal groups were more likely to make transfers to the groom’s family upon
marriage. In one paper, a team of economists examines how groups that histor-
ically paid bride-price respond to increased educational opportunities for wom-
en.35 Often, the size of the bride-price received by a woman’s family is associat-
ed with her level of education.36 Thus, groups that practice bride-price payments
may have a greater incentive to invest in the education of their daughters. The au-
thors take advantage of school-building programs in Indonesia and Zambia that

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provide variation in access to schooling. They find that the school-building pro-
grams are more effective in improving outcomes for girls in places that practice
bride-price. These results suggest that cultural practices may incentivize invest-
ment in education. However, Lucia Corno, Nicole Hildebrandt, and Alessandra
Voena have elsewhere found that bride-price payments may be used to smooth
consumption.37 When families face income shocks, bride-price may incentivize
them to have their daughters wed at a younger age.

A related literature in economics has examined how the organization of

production has shaped the role of women in society and the beliefs about
the appropriate role of women in society.

Alberto Alesina, Paola Giuliano, and Nathan Nunn, in “On the Origin of Gen-
der Roles: Women and the Plough,” examine how historical suitability for the
plough shapes present-day female labor force participation.38 The hypothesis is
motivated by insights from Ester Boserup, who suggested that the historical use of
the plough favored men’s participation in agricultural production.39 While both
men and women can participate in hoe agriculture, the plough requires a lot of
strength. Reliance on the plough thus led to differences in women’s engagement
in agriculture and to a sharper division of labor. To test this hypothesis, Alesina
and coauthors used data from George Peter Murdock’s Ethnographic Atlas, which
has information on the use of the plough and on women’s participation in agricul-
tural tasks historically.40 They find that in places with historical plough use, wom-
en participated less in agricultural activities (such as clearing land, soil prepara-
tion, and planting). Looking next at present-day data on labor force participation,
they find that historical reliance on the plough is associated with lower labor force
participation by women and with norms less compatible with women’s partici-
pation in the labor force. These results suggest that how production is organized
historically has shaped present-day beliefs about the appropriate role of women.
While there is limited work on the origins of matrilineal kinship, Ariel Ben-
Yishay, Pauline Grosjean, and Joe Vecci have explored how reef density in the
Solomon Islands predicts the practice of matrilineal kinship.41 They found that
matrilineal kinship is associated with greater reliance on fishing. One potential
mechanism is that reliance on fishing leads men to specialize in fishing, while
women focus on horticulture. In these conditions, there may be a relatively greater
benefit to women owning land.

More recent work by Anke Becker examines how historical reliance on pas-
toralism has shaped norms meant to constrain women’s sexuality.42 Pastoralism,
the breeding and care of herd animals such as sheep, goats, and cattle, was char-
acterized by frequent and long-term periods of male absence. Becker hypothe-
sizes that these absences increased the benefits of norms that constrain women’s
sexuality, such as female genital cutting (FGC). Combining data from thirty-four

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149 (1) Winter 2020Sara Lowes

countries on the historical practice of pastoralism with data from the DHS on the
practice of FGC and views on domestic violence, Becker found that places that re-
lied more on pastoralism were more likely to practice infibulation, the most inva-
sive form of FGC; to restrict women’s mobility; and to adhere to stricter norms
on women’s sexual behavior. Additionally, she found evidence of greater support
for domestic violence when these norms are violated. This research provides evi-
dence that the form of economic production shapes the cultural beliefs and prac-
tices that affect women.43

L arge gaps persist in outcomes for women relative to men across domains

from education, health, emotional well-being, and labor market outcomes.
Moreover, these gaps are often larger in developing countries. There has
been growing interest in understanding how variation in cultural practices affects
the well-being of women and what shapes the origins of these particular cultur-
al practices.

I have presented recent research on the role of matrilineal kinship systems in
shaping the preferences of women and outcomes for women and children. In my
own work, I have found evidence that matrilineal kinship reduces spousal coop-
eration, but that it increases investment in children and decreases domestic vio-
lence.44 Additionally, other cultural practices such as the payment of bride-price
and the practice of matrilocal residence upon marriage affect investments in chil-
dren. The origins of these cultural practices are often deeply rooted and tightly
tied to the modes of production, as is demonstrated by work on the plough and
women’s labor force participation, and pastoralism and norms restricting wom-
en’s sexuality.

One of the comparative advantages of work in economics is careful quantita-
tive empirical work and a focus on identifying the causal effects of a particular cul-
tural practice. Drawing on insights from anthropology, history, and political sci-
ence, economists have been able to contribute important evidence on how culture
shapes outcomes for women.

about the author

Sara Lowes is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Stanford King Center on Global Devel-
opment, a CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar, and a Research Associate of the Centre for
Economic Policy Research. She has a Ph.D. in political economy and government
from Harvard University. She will join the University of California, San Diego as an
Assistant Professor of Economics in July 2020. She has recently published in jour-
nals such as Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and Econometrica.

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endnotes

1 Seema Jayachandran, “The Roots of Gender Inequality in Developing Countries,” Annual

Review of Economics 7 (2015): 63–88.

2 Raquel Fernández, “Does Culture Matter?” in Handbook of Social Economics, vol. 1A, ed.
Matthew O. Jackson, Jess Benhabib, and Alberto Bisin (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2011),
chap. 11, 481–510; Raquel Fernández and Alessandra Fogli, “Culture: An Empirical In-
vestigation of Beliefs, Work and Fertility,” American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics
1 (1) (2010): 472–500; and Paola Giuliano, “Gender: An Historical Perspective,” in The
Oxford Handbook of Women and the Economy, ed. Susan L. Averett, Laura M. Argys, and
Saul D. Hoffman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).

3 Alberto Bisin and Thierry Verdier, “On the Joint Evolution of Culture and Institutions,”
NBER Working Paper No. 23375 (Cambridge, Mass.: National Bureau of Economic Re-
search, 2017). For evidence on the importance of institutions for development more
broadly, see Douglass North, Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and
James A. Robinson, “The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empiri-
cal Investigation,” American Economic Review 91 (5) (2001): 1369–1401; and Daron Ac-
emoglu and James A. Robinson, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and
Poverty (New York: Crown Publishing Group, 2012). For evidence on the importance
of culture for development, see Avner Greif, “Cultural Beliefs and the Organization of
Society: A Historical and Theoretical Reflection on Collectivist and Individualist Soci-
eties,” Journal of Political Economy 102 (5) (1994): 912–950; and Nathan Nunn and Leo-
nard Wantchekon, “The Slave Trade and the Origins of Mistrust in Africa,” American
Economic Review 101 (7) (2011): 3221–3252.

4 A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, “Introduction,” in African Systems of Kinship and Marriage, ed.
A. R. Radcliffe-Brown and Daryll Forde (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1950).

5 Robin Fox, Kinship and Marriage: An Anthropological Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1934).

6 George Peter Murdock, Ethnographic Atlas (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press,

1967).

7 Fox, Kinship and Marriage.

8 Muriel Niederle and Lise Vesterlund, “Do Women Shy Away from Competition? Do
Men Compete Too Much?” Quarterly Journal of Economics 122 (3) (2007): 1067–1101;
and Muriel Niederle, “Gender,” in Handbook of Experimental Economics, ed. John Kagel
and Alvin E. Roth (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2016), 481–553.

9 Uri Gneezy, Kenneth L. Leonard, and John A. List, “Gender Differences in Competition:
Evidence from a Matrilineal and a Patriarchal Society,” Econometrica 77 (5) (2009).

10 Ibid.
11 Muriel Niederle, “A Gender Agenda: A Progress Report on Competitiveness,” American

Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings 107 (5) (2017): 115–119.

12 Joseph Henrich, Steven J. Heine, and Ara Norenzayan, “The Weirdest People in the

World?” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 33 (2/3) (2010).

13 Steffen Andersen, Seda Ertac, Uri Gneezy, et al., “Gender, Competitiveness, and Social-
ization at a Young Age: Evidence from a Matrilineal and a Patriarchal Society,” The Re-
view of Economics and Statistics 95 (4) (2013): 1438–1443.

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14 Jeffrey Flory, Kenneth L. Leonard, Magda Tsaneva, and Kathryn Vasilaky, “Changes in
Competitiveness with Motherhood Stages and Culture: Evidence from Patrilocal and
Matrilocal Society,” working paper (2017).

15 Gneezy et al., “Gender Differences in Competition.”
16 Jane Zhang, “Culture, Institutions, and the Gender Gap in Competitive Inclination: Evi-
dence from the Communist Experiment in China,” Economic Journal 129 (617) (2019).
17 Sara Lowes, “Kinship Structure, Stress, and the Gender Gap in Competition,” working

paper (2018).

18 Paola Giuliano and Nathan Nunn, “Ancestral Characteristics of Modern Populations,”

Economic History of Developing Regions 33 (1) (2018): 1–17.

19 Fox, Kinship and Marriage.
20 Niederle and Vesterlund, “Do Women Shy Away from Competition?”
21 In this game, players are presented for a few seconds with a set of twelve cards with ani-
mal images on them. The twelve cards include six pairs of matching images.The goal of
the game is to select and reveal the two matching cards. Once a pair of matching cards
is revealed, the two cards disappear and the game continues until all matching pairs
have been revealed. The participants complete the game as many times as possible in a
five-minute period.

22 Lowes, “Kinship Structure, Stress, and the Gender Gap in Competition.”
23 Binglin Gong and Chun-Lei Yang, “Gender Differences in Risk Attitudes: Field Experi-
ments on the Matrilineal Mosuo and the Patriarchal Yi,” Journal of Economic Behavior
and Organization 83 (1) (2012): 59–65.

24 Mosche Hoffman, Uri Gneezy, and John A. List, “Nurture Affects Gender Differenc-
es in Spatial Abilities,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108 (36) (2011):
14786–14788.

25 Binglin Gong, Huibin Yan, and Chun-Lei Yang, “Gender Differences in the Dictator Ex-
periment: Evidence from the Matrilineal Mosuo and the Patriarchal Yi,” Experimental
Economics 18 (2) (2015): 302–313.

26 Sara Lowes, “Matrilineal Kinship and Spousal Cooperation: Evidence from the Matri-

lineal Belt,” working paper (2018).

27 Fox, Kinship and Marriage.
28 Radcliffe-Brown, “Introduction”; Max Gluckman, Custom and Conflict in Africa (Oxford:
Basil Blackwell, 1963); Audrey Richards, “Some Types of Family Structure Amongst
the Central Bantu,” in African Systems of Kinship and Marriage, ed. Radcliffe-Brown
and Forde; and Mary Douglas,, “Is Matriliny Doomed in Africa?” in Man in Africa, ed.
Mary Douglas and Phyllis M. Kaberry (London: Tavistock Publications, 1969), 123–137.

29 Lowes, “Matrilineal Kinship and Spousal Cooperation.”
30 See “Congo Democratic Republic” at Demographic and Health Surveys, https://dhs

program.com.

31 Lowes, “Matrilineal Kinship and Spousal Cooperation.”
32 Amanda Lea Robinson and Jessica Gottlieb, “How to Close the Gender Gap in Political
Participation: Lessons from Matrilineal Societies in Africa,” British Journal of Political
Science (First View, 2019), https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007123418000650.

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33 Rachel Brulé and Nikhar Gaikwad, “Culture, Capital and the Gender Gap in Political
Economy Preferences: Evidence from Meghalaya’s Tribes,” working paper (2017).
34 Natalie Bau, “Can Policy Change Culture? Government Pension Plans and Traditional
Kinship Practices,” CEPR Discussion Paper No. DP13486 (Washington, D.C.: Center for
Economic Policy Research, 2019).

35 Nava Ashraf, Natalie Bau, Nathan Nunn, and Alessandra Voena, “Bride Price and Female
Education,” NBER Working Paper No. 22417 (Cambridge, Mass.: National Bureau of
Economic Research, 2016).

36 See Sara Lowes and Nathan Nunn, “Bride Price and the Wellbeing of Women,” in Towards
Gender Equity in Development, ed. Siwan Anderson, Lori Beaman, and Jean-Philippe Plat-
teau (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018).

37 Lucia Corno, Nicole Hildebrandt, and Alessandra Voena, “Age of Marriage, Weather
Shocks, and the Direction of Marriage Payments,” NBER Working Paper No. 23604
(Cambridge, Mass.: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2019).

38 Alberto Alesina, Paola Giuliano, and Nathan Nunn, “On the Origin of Gender Roles:

Women and the Plough,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 128 (2) (2013): 469–530.
39 Ester Boserup, Woman’s Role in Economic Development (London: Earthscan, 2007).
40 Murdock, Ethnographic Atlas.
41 Ariel BenYishay, Pauline Grosjean, and Joe Vecci, “The Fish is the Friend of Matriliny:
Reef Density and Matrilineal Inheritance,” Journal of Development Economics 127 (2017):
234–249.

42 Anke Becker, “On the Economic Origins of Constraints on Women’s Sexuality,” CESifo

Working Paper Series 7770 (Munich: CESifo Group, 2018).

43 Ibid.
44 Lowes, “Matrilineal Kinship and Spousal Cooperation.”

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