Market integration, income inequality, and kinship system among the Mosuo of China.

ABSTRACT: Increased access to defensible material wealth is hypothesised to escalate inequality. Market integration, which creates novel opportunities in cash economies, provides a means of testing this hypothesis. Using demographic data collected from 505 households among the matrilineal and patrilineal Mosuo in 2017, we test whether market integration is associated with increased material wealth, whether increased material wealth is associated with wealth inequality, and whether being in a matrilineal vs. patrilineal kinship system alters the relationship between wealth and inequality. We find evidence that market integration, measured as distance to the nearest source of tourism and primary source of household income, is associated with increased household income and 'modern' asset value. Both vi

SUBMITTER: Mattison SM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10426023 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature