Nyt studie viser, at den kinesiske tradition med at invalidere kvinder ved at binde deres fødder ind (kaldet liljefødder), forsvandt da kvinder blev økonomisk værdifulde som arbejdskraft. En effekt der ikke er helt ukendt i den vestlige verden, hvor moderne teknologier som vaskemaskiner, industrialiseret fødevareproduktion osv. var med til at sende kvinderne ud på arbejdsmarkedet.

Her highligts fra studiet (mine fremhævninger):

* Economic motives behind foot-binding, a harming custom practiced by Chinese women, are explored.

* The booming sugarcane cultivation in Taiwan in the early 20th century is found to induce unbinding.

* Cane railroads, lines built exclusively for cane transportation, is used as an IV for cane cultivation.

* The need for human capital improvement was a likely mechanism that delivered the effects of cane cultivation.

* No evidence is found to support the increased bargaining power for women as a major mechanism.

Her er abstract:

We analyze the economic motives for the sudden demise in foot-binding, a self-harming custom widely practiced by Chinese females for centuries. We use newly-discovered Taiwanese data to estimate the extent to which females unbound their feet in response to the rapid growth in sugarcane cultivation in the early 20th century, growth which significantly boosted the demand for female labor. We find that cane cultivation significantly induced unbinding, with the IV estimations utilizing cane railroads – lines built exclusively for cane transportation – support a causal interpretation of the estimated effect. This finding implies that increased female employment opportunities can help eliminate norms that are harmful for females. Further analysis suggests that the need for human capital improvement was more likely to have driven the effects of cane cultivation, rather than the increased intra-household bargaining power for females.

Cheng et al. (2022) kan hentes her (gratis WP-version her).

Picture by Underwood & Underwood, London & New York – Women Of All Nations, page 532, MCMXI (1911), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=83322581