Huang, Yaming;
Bai, Pengpeng;
Zhou, Liqiong;
Mace, Ruth;
Du, Juan;
(2025)
A rapid decline in gender bias relates to changes in subsistence practices over demographic changes in a formerly matrilineal community.
iScience
, 28
(2)
, Article 111926. 10.1016/j.isci.2025.111926.
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Abstract
This research examines dynamics of kinship systems, emphasizing changes in gender-biased inheritance and social interaction within a formerly matrilineal community. Using demographic data over 70-year of lifespan from 17 Tibetan villages, we observe a significant shift within the predominantly matrilineal inheritance structure: a once-prevalent preference for females in older cohorts has now gone in recent generations. We explore two possible explanations: that this is driven by changes in subsistence system or by changes in sibling configuration. Our investigation reveals that a change from agriculture to non-traditional economy with more market integration marks a pivot from matrilineal to non-unilineal inheritance systems. Moreover, results from economic games conducted in two distinct survey periods (2015 and 2021) indicate that high donations for females in 2015 have become unbiased in 2021. These findings provide concrete evidence of shifts in gender preference both at the level of familial resource allocation and broader societal interactions.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | A rapid decline in gender bias relates to changes in subsistence practices over demographic changes in a formerly matrilineal community |
| Location: | United States |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.isci.2025.111926 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2025.111926 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Crown Copyright ª 2025 Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
| Keywords: | Science & Technology, Multidisciplinary Sciences, Science & Technology - Other Topics, PARENTAL INVESTMENT, MARKET INTEGRATION, SEX-DIFFERENCES, CHILD SURVIVAL, KINSHIP, WEALTH, INEQUALITY, LEADERSHIP, EVOLUTION, SELECTION |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of Anthropology |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10206881 |
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