The origins and consequences of kin networks and marriage practices
by
Duman Bahramirad
M.Sc., University of Tehran, 2007 B.Sc., University of Tehran, 2005
Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
in the
Department of Economics
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
- c
- ꢀ Duman Bahramirad 2018
SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY
Summer 2018
Copyright in this work rests with the author. Please ensure that any reproduction or re-use is done in accordance with the relevant national copyright legislation.
Approval
Name: Degree: Title:
Duman Bahramirad Doctor of Philosophy (Economics) The origins and consequences of kin networks and marriage practices
Examining Committee:
Chair: Nicolas Schmitt
Professor
Gregory K. Dow
Senior Supervisor Professor
Alexander K. Karaivanov
Supervisor Professor
Erik O. Kimbrough
Supervisor Associate Professor Argyros School of Business and Economics Chapman University
Simon D. Woodcock
Supervisor Associate Professor
Chris Bidner
Internal Examiner Associate Professor
Siwan Anderson
External Examiner Professor Vancouver School of Economics University of British Columbia
- Date Defended:
- July 31, 2018
ii
Ethics Statement
iii
Abstract
In the first chapter, I investigate a potential channel to explain the heterogeneity of kin networks across societies. I argue and test the hypothesis that female inheritance has historically had a positive effect on in-marriage and a negative effect on female premarital relations and economic participation. In the second chapter, my co-authors and I provide evidence on the positive association of in-marriage and corruption. We also test the effect of family ties on nepotism in a bribery experiment. The third chapter presents my second joint paper on the consequences of kin networks. Taking a bigger-picture approach, we define a kinship intensity index based on basic elements of kinship systems such as marriage practices, residence patterns, and lineage organizations. Combining data on 20 psychological outcomes, we show that a significant portion of the existing psychological variation around the world originates in the differences of kin networks. Using historical measures of Church exposure, we also show that the variation in these differences arose historically from the Catholic Church’s marriage and family policies.
Keywords: Female inheritance; Kin networks; Gender inequality; Cousin marriage; Endogamy; Corruption; Individualism
iv
Dedication
To my wonderful wife, Mahsa. v
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Greg Dow, Alexander Karaivanov, Erik Kimbrough, and Simon Woodcock for their guidance and support.
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Table of Contents
- Approval
- ii
iii iv v
Ethics Statement Abstract Dedication Acknowledgements Table of Contents List of Tables List of Figures vi vii ix x
12
- Introduction
- 1
Keeping It in the Family: Female Inheritance, In-marriage, and the Status of Women
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Inheritance system as a determinant of kinship pattern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.2.1 Classification of inheritance systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.2 Origins and persistence of inheritance systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3
3789
2.2.3 Patterns of inmarriage and female economic participation . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.3 Conceptual framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.3.1 Female inheritance and inmarriage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 2.3.2 Female inheritance and the status of women . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.4 Empirical strategies and results using historical data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.4.1 Pre-industrial societies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 2.4.2 Mid-twentieth-century Italy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.5 Empirical strategies and results using contemporary data from developing countries 27
2.5.1 Individual-level analysis using Indonesian data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 2.5.2 Difference in differences analysis using Hindu Succession (Amendment)
Act of India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
vii
2.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Bibliography Keeping It in the Family: Female Inheritance, In-marriage, and the Status
- of Women
- 40
- 56
- 3
- Kinship, Fractionalization and Corruption
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 3.2 Theory and hypotheses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
3.2.1 A basic model of bribery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 3.2.2 Inclusive fitness, kin altruism, and corruption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 3.2.3 Consanguineous marriage, sub-ethnic fractionalization, and corruption . . . 67
3.3 Empirical Strategy and Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
3.3.1 Cross-country analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 3.3.2 Within-country analysis (Italy) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 3.3.3 Laboratory Experiments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
3.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Bibliography Kinship, Fractionalization and Corruption
Origins of WEIRD Psychology
89
- 4
- 105
4.1 Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 4.2 Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 4.3 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
4.3.1 Psychological variation across countries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 4.3.2 Psychological Variation within Europe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 4.3.3 The children of immigrants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
4.4 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
- Bibliography Origins of WEIRD psychology
- 125
Appendix A Keeping It in the Family: Female Inheritance, In-marriage, and the Status
- of Women
- 127
164 217
Appendix B Kinship, Fractionalization and Corruption Appendix C Origins of Weird Psychology
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List of Tables
Table 2.1 Female inclusion and partibility of inheritance in the EA . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Table 2.2 Set of control variable used in the regression analyses with the EA data . . . 22 Table 2.3 First set of regression analyses with the EA data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Table 2.4 Second set of regression analyses with the EA data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Table 2.5 Regression analyses with data on Italian provinces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Table 2.6 Ethnic-level regression analyses with IFLS data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Table 2.7 Individual-level regression analyses with IFLS data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Table 2.8 Diff-in-diff regression analyses with NFHS data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Table 2.9 Diff-in-diff regression analyses with NFHS data, counterfactual trends . . . 37
Table 3.1 Misspecification due to omission of sub-ethnic fractionalization . . . . . . . 59 Table 3.2 Misspecification due to conflation of ethnic and sub-ethnic fractionalization . 59 Table 3.3 Religious attitudes to consanguineous marriage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Table 3.4 Cross-country regression analysis of the relationship between consanguinity and corruption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Table 3.5 Cross-country regression analysis of the relationship between consanguinity and corruption: potential confounds. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Table 3.6 Regression analysis of the relationship between consanguinity and corruption in Italy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Table 3.7 Regression analysis of the relationship between consanguinity and corruption in Italy controlling for climate and geography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Table 3.8 Reduced form regressions with active years of archdioceses . . . . . . . . . 79 Table 3.9 Active years of archdioceses as an instrument for consanguinity . . . . . . . 80 Table 3.10 Relative frequency of bribery and corruption by treatment . . . . . . . . . . 85 Table 3.11 Summary of relative frequency of bribery and corruption . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Table 4.1 Psychological and behavioral measures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 Table 4.2 Baseline cross-country regressions for psychological outcomes . . . . . . . 119 Table 4.3 Regression of psychological outcomes on exposure to the medieval Western
Church . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Table 4.4 Regression of psychological outcomes for the children of immigrants in Europe123
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List of Figures
Figure 2.1 Figure 2.2 Figure 2.3 Figure 2.4 Figure 2.5 Figure 2.6
Average cousin marriage rates in India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Worldwide distribution of pre-industrial inheritance systems . . . . . . .
69
Cousin marriage and female economic participation rates around the world 12 Cousin marriage and female economic participation rates in Italy . . . . . 13 Female inheritance and cousin marriage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Cousin marriage rates among Hindu women across Indian states. . . . . . 33
Figure 3.1 Figure 3.2 Figure 3.3 Figure 3.4
A bribery game between strangers and relatives with inclusive fitness . . . 64 Corruption and consanguinity around the world . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 Corruption and consanguinity in Italy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Bribery game in the experiment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Figure 4.1 Figure 4.2 Figure 4.3 Figure 4.4 Figure 4.5 Figure 4.6 Figure 4.7
Kinship Intensity Index for ethno-linguistic populations around the globe . 109 Western Church exposure across European regions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 Individualism and independence, kinship intensity and Church exposure . 114 Conformity and obedience, kinship intensity and Church exposure . . . . 115 Impartiality, kinship intensity and Church exposure . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 Impersonal cooperation and trust, kinship intensity and Church exposure . 117 Relationships between regional estimates of cousin marriage and psychological measures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
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Chapter 1
Introduction
The thesis includes three chapters on the origins and consequences of kin networks, marriage practices, and gender norms. In the first chapter, I study historical origins of existing differences in marriage practices and gender norms across societies. I argue that in patrilineal societies that mandate female inheritance, such as Islamic societies, cousin marriage and endogamy have developed to preserve property in the male lineage, prevent land fragmentation, and limit conflicts over inheritance. In these societies, female inheritance has also encouraged restrictions on women’s premarital sexual freedom in order to arrange cousin marriages and avoid out-of-wedlock children as potential heirs. These restrictions, such as through veiling and segregation from men, are incompatible with female participation in agriculture and have further influenced the historical gender division of labor. Using data on pre-industrial societies, Italian provinces, and Indonesian individuals, I find evidence consistent with these hypotheses: female inheritance is associated with higher cousin marriage, endogamy, and arranged marriage, and lower female economic participation and premarital sexual freedom. Finally, I use a 2005 reform of Indian inheritance laws to obtain causal estimates of the effect of female inheritance on the cousin marriage rate and the female premarital sex rate.
In the second chapter, along with my co-authors Mahsa Akbari and Erik Kimbrough, I study consequences of marriage practices for quality of formal institutions. By shaping patterns of relatedness and interaction, marriage practices influence the relative returns to norms of nepotism/favoritism versus norms of impartial cooperation. Cousin marriage yields a relatively closed society of related individuals and thereby encourages favoritism and corruption. Out-marriage creates a relatively open society with increased interaction between non-relatives and strangers, thereby encouraging impartiality. We report a robust association between in-marriage practices and corruption across countries and across Italian provinces. A stylized corruption experiment comparing subjects from two countries with divergent marriage patterns provides complementary evidence that the degree of impartiality varies with marriage patterns.
In the last chapter, along with my co-authors Jonathan Schulz, Jonathan Beauchamp, and Joseph
Henrich, I study consequences of kinship patterns for social psychology. Recent research not only confirms the existence of substantial psychological variation around the globe but also highlights the peculiarity of populations that are Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic
1
(WEIRD). We propose that much of this variation arose as people psychologically adapted to differing kin-based institutions—the set of social norms governing descent, marriage, residence and related domains. We further propose that part of the variation in these institutions arose historically from the Catholic Church’s marriage and family policies, which contributed to the dissolution of Europe’s traditional kin-based institutions, leading eventually to the predominance of nuclear families and impersonal institutions. By combining data on 20 psychological outcomes with historical measures of both kinship and Church exposure, we find support for these ideas in a comprehensive array of analyses across countries, among European regions and between individuals with different cultural backgrounds.
2
Chapter 2
Keeping It in the Family: Female Inheritance, In-marriage, and the Status of Women
“This is what the LORD commands ... Every daughter who inherits land in any Israelite tribe must marry someone in her father’s tribal clan, so that every Israelite will possess the inheritance of his fathers."
(The Bible, Numbers 36)
2.1 Introduction
Modern economic literature widely assumes that female inheritance empowers women, increases their autonomy, and promotes gender equality. This is true in the modern world, where women’s inheritance rights enable them to control and exploit their property and therefore improve their social and economic prospects. However, in a patrilineal traditional society, female inheritance transmits property through women, not to women. Here, women function mainly as carriers of property from father to husband, and on to children, rather than as active managers of wealth [113, 157, 159, 147]. Therefore, under female inheritance, a woman’s marriage determines whom her family will have to share their land or herds with. Thus, her male relatives have the incentive to arrange her marriage to a cousin in order to keep her share of property among themselves. Arranging her marriage also requires controlling her premarital romantic and sexual relationships. These arrangements and controls are likely to negatively impact the woman’s role and participation in society.
Despite inheritance being an important economic institution, the above paradigm from the social sciences has received little attention from economists. I attempt to fill this gap in the field. I propose that under female inheritance, patrilineal societies encourage inmarriage—in the form of cousin marriage or endogamy (marriage within the limits of a local community such as a clan or village)— and control over women’s sexuality to keep property within the male lineage, prevent property fragmentation, and limit conflicting claims on the estate. Using different data sources, I confirm that female inheritance is associated with more cousin marriage, endogamy and arranged marriage, as
3well as with less female economic participation and premarital sexual freedom. I also provide causal evidence that female inheritance has a positive effect on the cousin marriage rate and a negative effect on the female premarital sex rate.
I present a conceptual framework to analyze inmarriage and the status of women in both patrilineal pre-industrial societies and contemporary developing countries. In this framework, the objective of a family head in a patrilineal society is to preserve the patrilineal succession, that is, to minimize the probability of patrilineal extinction in order to perpetuate his male lineage. At the same time, the production technology exhibits increasing returns to scale up to a point, due to the size of the land required for plowing and harrowing, or to maintain a base of local political power (such as a feudal estate).1
I develop the conceptual framework based on three assumptions. First, I take patrilineal bias—in succession of names, rights, titles, properties, and so on—as given based on the fact that patrilineal systems have historically been widespread [103]. As Adam Smith noted, patrilineal systems incorporate the patrilineal bias in order to preserve male lineages [236, 60] as their basic social units. Second, capital markets are imperfect, and most land is acquired through inheritance as a non-market mechanism of land transmission between close kin. This assumption characterizes pre-industrial agricultural societies and many contemporary developing countries [60, 213, 36, 152]. Third, I assume female inheritance was introduced exogenously to some patrilineal societies but not others. As I discuss in section 2.2, the literature suggests that the differences in traditional inheritance systems across societies are deep-rooted in geographical characteristics and the subsistence economy of the regions. Moreover, religions and legal systems also contributed to the persistence of inheritance systems throughout history. For example, Muslims have had to follow Islamic inheritance law because it is stated explicitly in the text of the Qur’an. The centuries-long legal recognition of entails in many European countries is another example. By an entail, the founder of an estate could prevent its sale or division by an indefinite and automatic chain of succession specified at his will. Because of its deep-rooted origins and its persistence through religious or secular laws or traditions, following the literature, we can reasonably consider inheritance an exogenous determinant of more flexible social institutions such as marriage practices and gender norms.
Using insights from anthropological studies such as [113], I propose two hypotheses. The first hypothesis is that when women are included in inheritance, inmarriage is more frequent. Several possible mechanisms are involved. Cousin marriage keeps the land within the male lineage and therefore decreases the probability of patrilineal extinction. Inmarriage also provides a way to decrease property fragmentation: a man can marry a woman within the kin or community to pool land parcels and capital goods, which decreases land and capital fragmentation. Finally, cousin marriage decreases rivalry and conflict between siblings over inheritance by creating overlapping interests
1I base my arguments on inheritance of land only, both for the sake of clarity and because land was historically the most important form of property, factor of production, and source of wealth. However, my arguments and hypotheses may well apply to other property such as herds or commercial property.
4among their offspring; a sister’s offspring will benefit from the property of a brother when it passes to his offspring.
The second hypothesis is that under female inheritance, more restrictions are imposed on women’s premarital sexual behavior and their economic participation. Two potential mechanisms are involved. The first mechanism is through inmarriage. Female inheritance promotes cousin and endogamous marriages, which are usually arranged by parents. Arranging marriage requires controlling premarital courtship and sexual relationships through gender segregation and restrictions on contact between opposite sexes. Under these restrictions, young people are less likely to form romantic attachments with outsiders, which makes it easier to arrange marriage with an intended cousin. Further, under such restrictions, cousins are among the few people of the opposite sex whom young people are likely to meet and form a romantic relationship with. However, restrictions on contact between opposite sexes tend to disadvantage women more than men, because women’s sexual behavior can more easily be screened (through virginity and unwanted pregnancy). Gender segregation is also likely to lead to women being secluded at home and wearing the veil, which are incompatible with participation in agriculture and may intensify the pre-existing division of labor within the agricultural family. The second mechanism is through maternity certainty.2 Female sexual freedom is a threat to a family’s property because out-of-wedlock children are connected to the family due to maternity certainty and therefore are considered potential heirs. Avoiding illegitimate children by requiring women’s virginity before marriage protects the kin group from dispersion of property by illegitimate children and also limits the possibility of conflicting claims on the estate in which a woman has rights.
In the empirical section, I use three different data sets (ethnicity-level data from the Ethnographic Atlas, province-level data from Italy, and individual-level data from Indonesia) to test the correlations predicted by the hypotheses. I also use individual-level data from India to provide evidence for the causal relationships predicted by the hypotheses.
Regression analysis on the Ethnographic Atlas data confirms that female inheritance is associated with lower female participation in agriculture and higher cousin marriage, endogamy, and female premarital sex prohibitions. The reduced female participation in agriculture associated with female inheritance is of a comparable magnitude to that of plow agriculture. This is an important finding considering the famous study by [16] on the negative impact of plow agriculture on women’s participation in agriculture. As they argued, such a negative impact may carry over to beliefs about the role and participation of women in society generally.
I also test the effects of traditional inheritance systems in Italy on cousin marriage and female economic participation rates. The regression analyses show that Italian provinces with an egalitarian inheritance system that included women in inheritance have had higher cousin marriage rates and lower female economic participation rates.