Adoption as an Heirship Strategy under Demographic Constraints: A Case from Nineteenth-Century Japan
Author(s)
Kurosu, Satomi; Ochiai, Emiko
Abstract
This piece examines the adoption practices of South-Tama peasants in late nineteenth-century Japan on the basis of an 1870 household register (2,057 households). It is shown that the adoption institution was the major heirship strategy for these households. The probability of adoption varied by the number of surviving offspring and family economic status. Adoption was an important way to redistribute sons, benefiting households with and without sons and preventing household extinction.
