The Structure and Persistence of Patriarchy: Spatial and Temporal Dynamics in the United States, 1880–1940

Mateusz Grzyb, Cardinal Wyszynski University in Warsaw
Mikolaj Szoltysek, The Cardinal Wyszynski University of Warsaw

Patriarchy is often treated as a stable feature of family systems, yet its internal structure and spatial persistence remain insufficiently understood. Research on historical Europe has shown that patriarchy can be operationalized as a multidimensional construct and that its core features display long-term persistence. More recent work has documented substantial geographical variation in the level of the Patriarchy Index (PI) in the United States around the turn of the twentieth century and suggested possible extensions of the original index. Comparative evidence from Asia further indicates that the constituent dimensions of patriarchy—male dominance, generational hierarchy, patrilocality, and son preference—need not be equally correlated with one another, nor uniformly related to external indicators such as gender equality or women’s labor force participation. However, systematic evidence remains limited on how the internal structure of patriarchy varies across space and time, how stable its geographical distribution has been, and how its original dimensions relate to potential extensions such as married women’s labor force participation or spousal age gaps. It also remains unclear whether associations between patriarchy and its conditioning factors weaken as societies undergo economic and institutional transformation. This study addresses these gaps using harmonized IPUMS USA decennial censuses between 1880 and 1940, a period marked by rapid economic change, internal migration, and territorial expansion. We compute PI in both its original and expanded versions at the county level and examine three sets of relationships: (1) associations between patriarchy and geo-climatic, economic, and infrastructural covariates; (2) the internal structure of PI and its stability over time; and (3) links between the original PI dimensions and selected extensions. Analyses are conducted in cross-sectional and longitudinal frameworks to assess temporal change in relationship strength. Accordingly, this study provides a framework for assessing the long-term consequences of historical family systems in rapidly transforming societies.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 46. Patriarchal Regimes in Comparative Perspective: Variation, Measurement, and Historical Change