Stanford University

Gender Imbalance and Social Network Pressures in Rural China

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China and some other Asian countries have experienced a large surplus of men of marriageable age. The existing literature studies the impact of sex imbalance using aggregate sex ratios, such as at the county, city, or province level. However, these studies may miss important impacts on health and behavior because the relevance of surplus sons to family decisions mainly stems from pressure conveyed through social interactions with the local reference group.

This paper draws from unique social network data, collected from households' long-term spontaneous gift exchange records (li dan), combined with household panel data from 18 Chinese villages to explore the prevalence of men's localized pressure to get married. The surveyed villages are home to Chinese ethnic minorities, which largely circumvents endogenous fertility decisions on the first-born child due to the implementation of One Child Policy and its associated relaxations afterwards. To identify the effect of pressure to find wives for their sons on parental risky behavior, we focus on comparing families with a first-born boy versus a first-born girl and distinguish the network spillover effect from the direct effect.

The spatial econometric decompositions suggest that the pressure mainly originates from a few friends with unmarried sons and unbalanced sex ratios in the friendship networks, though own village sex ratio and having an unmarried son also affects parental risk-taking behavior. The results are consistent across specifications allowing for long-run and short-run effects. We also find similar patterns for parental working hours, their likelihood to engage in entrepreneurial activities and decision to migrate. In contrast, parents with a daughter do not demonstrate this pattern. Since the sex ratio imbalance in China will probably worsen in the next decade, disentangling the real sources of marriage market pressure may help design policies to improve parental well-being.

Dr. Xi Chen's main research interests involve health economics and development economics in the developing contexts. He recently completed his PhD in applied economics at Cornell. His research seeks to better understand how social interactions affect health behavior and outcomes, how socioeconomic status drives social competition. Most of his current work draws on primary data from China and secondary data from India and Indonesia.

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Xi Chen Assistant Professor Speaker Department of Health Policy and Management Yale School of Public Health
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Marjorie Pajaron

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Visiting Scholar at APARC, 2026
Asia Health Policy Postdoctoral Fellow, 2012-2013
PajaronMarjorie_WEB.jpg PhD

Marjorie Pajaron joins the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center as Visiting Scholar beginning April 2026 through July 2026 from the University of the Philippines Diliman (UPSE), where she serves as Associate Professor in the School of Economics. She was previously at APARC as Asia Health Policy Postdoctoral Fellow during the 2012–13 academic year.

While at APARC, she will be conducting research on the migration of healthcare workers from the Philippines and the nexus with climate change.

Pajaron received a PhD in economics from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa.

Publications:

Ramel, R. C. D., Legaspi, J. D., & Pajaron, M. C. (2026). Illuminating the land: the effects of nighttime lights on land values in the Philippines. Remote Sensing Letters, 17(5), 465–477. https://doi.org/10.1080/2150704X.2026.2650396

Pajaron M, Vasquez GN. (2023). Weather, Lockdown, and the Pandemic: Evidence from the Philippines. Philipp J Sci 152(S1): 47–62. https://doi.org/10.56899/152.S1.04

Pajaron, M.C., Vasquez, G.N.A. (2020). Weathering the storm: weather shocks and international labor migration from the Philippines. Journal of Population Economics 33, 1419–1461. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00148-020-00779-1

Pajaron, M. (2017). “The Role of Remittances as a Risk-Coping Mechanism: Evidence from Agricultural Households in the Philippines.” Asian and Pacific Migration Journal 26 (1): 3–30. https://doi.org/10.1177/01171968166806

Pajaron, M. (2016). “Heterogeneity in the Intrahousehold Allocation of International Remittances: Evidence from Philippine Households.” Journal of Development Studies 52 (6): 854–875. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220388.2015.1113261

 

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Stanford president emeritus discusses priority areas for Japan's universities

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Following the recent Stanford Kyoto Trans-Asian Dialogue, Gerhard Casper, Stanford president emeritus and current FSI director, spoke with the Asahi Shimbun about the need for Japanese students to study abroad and for universities to be given more autonomy.
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Students at Japan's Ritsumeikan University take a break between classes and studying.
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How Foreign Assistance Undermines Democracy: Aid Dependence in Cambodia

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The more a country depends on aid, the more distorted are its incentives to manage its own development in sustainably beneficial ways. Cambodia, a post-conflict state that cannot refuse aid, is rife with trial-and-error donor experiments and their unintended results, including bad governance—a major impediment to rational economic growth. Massive intervention by the UN in the early 1990s did help to end the Cambodian civil war and to prepare for more representative rule. Yet the country’s social indicators, the integrity of its political institutions, and its ability to manage its own development soon deteriorated. Based on a comparison of how more and less aid-dependent sectors have performed, Prof. Ear will highlight the complicity of foreign assistance in helping to degrade Cambodia’s political economy. Copies of his just-published book, Aid Dependence in Cambodia, will be available for sale. The book intertwines events in 1990s and 2000s Cambodia with the story of his own family’s life (and death) under the Khmer Rouge, escape to Vietnam in 1976, asylum in France in 1978, and immigration to America in 1985.

Sophal Ear was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2011 and a TED Fellow in 2009. His next book—The Hungry Dragon: How China’s Resources Quest is Reshaping the World, co-authored with Sigfrido Burgos Cáceres—will appear in February 2013. Prof. Ear is vice-president of the Diagnostic Microbiology Development Program, advises the University of Phnom Penh’s master’s program in development studies, and serves on the international advisory board of the International Public Management Journal. He wrote and narrated “The End/Beginning: Cambodia,” an award-winning documentary about his family’s escape from the Khmer Rouge. He has a PhD in political science, two master’s degrees from the University of California-Berkeley, and a third master’s from Princeton University.

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Sophal Ear Assistant Professor, Department of National Security Affairs Speaker US Naval Postgraduate School
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Gender Imbalance in China: A Cautionary Tale of Land Reform, Income, and Sex Ratios

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Venue Changed to the Philippines Conference Room
 
This paper examines the effect of income growth induced by 1978–84 land reform on the
sex ratio imbalance in China. Using variation in reform timing by county together with the
absence of sex selection among first-born child, we compare the sex of the second child between families with a first girl and those with a first boy before and after the reform. Results show that following a first daughter, the second child is 5.5 percent more likely to be a boy after landreform. Better educated parents are substantially more likely to respond with sex selection. After assessing various potential channels, our evidence is most consistent with an effect of increased household income.
 
Shuang Zhang is a postdoctoral fellow at SIEPR. She received her PhD from Cornell University in 2012 and will start as an assistant professor at the University of Colorado Boulder after one year at SIEPR. Her primary interests are development, health and education. Her current work focuses on various reforms and health outcomes in China.
 

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Shuang Zhang Postdoctoral Fellow, SIEPR Speaker Stanford University
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Younghae Han

Walter H. Shorenstein

Asia-Pacific Research Center
Encina Hall, Room E310
616 Serra St.
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 725-9623
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2012-2013 Visiting Professor
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Young-Hae Han is a visiting professor at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) for the 2012–13 academic year. She is also a professor at the Graduate School of International Studies at Seoul National University (SNU). Her research and education focuses on contemporary Japanese society. She has conducted field research on Japanese local-level grassroots social movements in cities such as Kawasaki, Kunidachi, Kobe, Yamagata, Kanazawa, and Oita. After the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, she organized a team and conducted research in the damaged area. Han is also involved on researching another topic that is of great interest to her: ethnic minorities in contemporary Japan. For this topic, her research has been focused on identity issues of Zainichi Koreans, particularly on the new relation of Zainichi with their “homeland” in the post-cold war period.

Han served as the director of the Institute for Japanese Studies at SNU from 2006 to 2012 until just before she joined Shorenstein APARC. She also served as the chair of the Exchange Committee of KSA-AJS at the Korean Sociological Association from 2008 to 2011.

Han is the author of numerous publications, such as the books: Understanding Contemporary Japanese Society (in Korean); Japanese Community and Grassroots Social Movements (in Korean); Multi-Cultural Japan and Identity Politics (co-author, in Korean). Her recent publications include Institutionalization of East Asian Studies and New Dilemmas: With a Focus on Japanese Studies (in English); New Relationship between Zainichi Koreans and the Homeland: Through the Journeys of the Former ‘Chosen Nationals’ Living in Korea (in Japanese); The Meaning of ‘Seikatsu’ (Life) in the Citizens’ Movement in Contemporary Japan (in Korean); and The Inheritance of the Korean Dance and Identity in the Ethnic Korean Community (in Korean).  

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So-Min Cheong

Shorenstein APARC
Encina Hall, Room E301
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 723-2408
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2012-2013 Visiting Professor
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So-Min Cheong is a visiting professor at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center for the 2012–2013 academic year, and is an associate professor of geography at the University of Kansas. Her current research focuses on the social consequences of environmental disasters and climate change adaptation in Korea and the United States. 

Cheong is the author of numerous publications in top interdisciplinary environment, policy, and geography journals such as: Nature Climate Change; Climatic Change; Ecology and Society; Environment and Planning; Transactions of the Institute of the British Geographers; and Marine Policy. She has also worked on several technical reports for the Korean government on the topics of coastal management, adaptation, boundary issues, and disaster management. She was a lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on managing climate extremes, and is currently a contributing author of the IPCC 5th Assessment Report. Her recent awards include the NSF CAREER award and the Korea Foundation Fellowship.  

Cheong received her PhD in geography from the University of Washington, where she also earned MA degrees in marine affairs and international studies. She earned her BA in English from Yonsei University in Korea, and was an exchange student at Reed College in Portland, Oregon.  

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