Renegotiating Patriarchy: Lineage Succession, Intergenerational Support, and Gender Inequality in Contemporary China

Fangqi Wen, Ohio State University

Gender wealth gaps persist across societies and are often attributed to individual factors such as education, work experience, and lifetime earnings. However, structural inequalities rooted in traditional patriarchal kinship systems—characterized by patrilocal marriage and patrilineal inheritance—systematically exclude women from inheriting family wealth. To examine how women and their families navigate these institutional barriers and under what circumstances women can be treated as heirs, I conduct original surveys and field research in China, where rapid economic and demographic transformations coexist with enduring patriarchal norms. Specifically, I demonstrate that in the Chinese context, where surname inheritance is closely tied to wealth inheritance, declining fertility rates, coupled with economic and cultural shifts, have spurred growing public support for assigning maternal surnames to children. I further show that this renegotiation of patrilineal practices surrounding surnames and lineage enables Chinese women to maintain closer bonds and secure greater financial, childcare, and housework support from their natal families. These findings identify surname succession as a consequential institutional mechanism linking symbolic lineage membership to material resource allocation. They show how demographic pressures and changing gender expectations can open space for women’s empowerment within enduring patriarchal systems and clarify when private-domain inequalities in wealth and intergenerational support can be reduced.

See extended abstract

 Presented in Session 152. Understanding Kinship and Family Dynamics