The Economic Motives for Foot-Binding

Xinyu Fan () and Lingwei Wu ()

CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series from University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany

Abstract: 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.

Keywords: Gender Norm; Marriage Market; Labor; Foot-binding (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J16 N35 O15 Z10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 61
Date: 2020-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cna, nep-evo and nep-his
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2020_187

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