The Economic Motives of Foot-binding (with Xinyu Fan)
We study foot-binding – a practice that reshaped millions of women’s feet in historical China, yet in lack of a consistent explanation of its temporal, regional, class, and size variation. We present a model of foot-binding, where it serves as a premarital investment tool in response to a male-specific social mobility shock, and women trade off labor distortions for marriage prospects. Furthermore, the regional shifts on both sides of the trade-off explained its observed variation. Using county-level archival data on foot-binding, we corroborate the theory with empirical evidence.
Date:
1 December 2020, 17:00 (Tuesday, 8th week, Michaelmas 2020)
Venue:
Held on Zoom
Speaker:
Lingwei Wu (Department of Economics, University of Bonn, Germany)
Organising department:
Department of Economics
Part of:
Economic and Social History Seminar
Booking required?:
Not required
Audience:
Members of the University only
Editor:
Melis Clark
