讲座主题：The Economic Motives for Foot-binding

　　主讲人：武玲蔚，德国波恩大学助理教授

　　讲座时间：3月8日(周五)上午10:00-11:30

　　讲座地点：A204

　　主办单位：武汉大学经济与管理学院世界经济系，主持人：郭汝飞

　　讲座摘要：What are the origins of gender-biased social norms? This paper presents a unified theory to understand foot-binding – a long-standing custom that reshaped the feet of girls in historical China – and investigates its adoption dynamics driven by a gender-asymmetric mobility system (the Civil Examination System). The exam system marked the transition from heredity aristocracy to meritocracy, which generated a more heterogeneous composition of men compared to women, triggering intensive competition among women in the marriage market. Embodying both aesthetic and moral values, foot-binding was gradually adopted by women as a social ladder, first by the upper class and later by the lower class. However, since foot-binding impedes non-sedentary labor but not sedentary labor, its adoption in the lower class exhibited distinctive regional variation: it was highly prevalent in regions where women specialized in household handicraft, and was less popular in regions where women specialized in intensive farming, e.g. rice cultivation. Empirical results with county-level Republican archives on foot-binding are consistent with theoretical predictions.

　　主讲人简介：Lingwei Wu is an assistant professor of economics at the University of Bonn. She received her PhD from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in 2018. Her research fields include applied microeconomics, development economics, and economic history in the context of China.